I’ve spent a lot of years working in WordPress. I used it to build some early learning management systems (LMS, a specific type of CMS designed for classroom use) long before COVID made remote learning such a hot topic. I’ve used it to build hobby websites for table-top roleplaying games. I’ve used it to build simple web utilities for the family.
So, every year or so, I like to drop the active theme on my website and rebuild from as close to zero as possible. I use the underscores base theme created by the same folks behind many other WordPress utilities. It has the core pieces I need to determine layout, add some custom blocks, and keep up to date on the backend.
For the past year or two, I’ve felt too busy to keep up and I fell back on an old theme that had been gathering dust in my hard drive. As a result, the site itself gathered quite a bit of dust while I worked on other projects.
2025-2026 Goals
Between now and the autumn 2026, I’m shaking off the dust. Let’s make this blank slate something interesting to look at!
Design
First off, I need to hone some existing skills.
- Build some custom blocks for portfolio pieces.
- Build some automations to support a portfolio workflow.
- Play around with grids and shaped divs.
- Make the color scheme work for all visual abilities.
Then, let’s see if I can practice a few things that have changed or developed quite a bit since I last used them.
- Complex responsiveness that listens to more than just screen width.
- Real-time database interaction with jquery.
- WooCommerce and ad integration.
Six goals, twelve months. Seems doable?
Content
Rather than test the design developments on some bland ipsum text, this website really needs to go back to holding some interesting content (even if it’s only interesting to me).
- More portfolio pieces along each of my content management and campaign management skillsets—email campaigns, CRM work, data analysis, and more.
- Some personal blogging. I’m tired of giving this content to social media companies for free!
- Some professional blogging. I am living the lessons I taught as a professor, and maybe I ought to start documenting that stuff more publicly in case I return to the classroom someday.
Progress Tracking
In campaign and project management, I like to ensure that every goal, task, and outcome is explicitly defined and documented, so keep track of the New year, new css , Web design, and Content development in action tags to see how things are moving along.
