Small pieces
Small amounts of work added up over time can eventually add up to something significant. It's getting the system setup that supports a consistent habit that's tricky.
I have made some new updates and changes to the site.
Mostly minor visual updates but also periodic layout changes as I learn more about using CSS grid.
I have been chipping away at this site in small doses to make as much progress as I can instead of working through intense sprints.
The danger with this approach is that you lose momentum because you can't see the big rewards from the effort. However, I am trying to create a regular habit out of writing and posting while balancing it against all of the reading and studying I do outside of my normal work.
So I'm looking to create a system and a routine.
I think that any long-term creative work requires some kind of routine and process so that the creative effort stays on the work itself and not on simply doing the work.
I think that Twyla Tharp's book is where I first encountered this idea and it's something that has taken me a long time to learn the hard way by trying to accomplish creative (generative) work over the years and it always coming in very intense sprints followed by nothing for months or years.
The trouble is in restraining my own exuberance about whatever it is I'm interested in learning now and balancing it against what I'm already working on.
I see there is an element to knowing yourself and your capacity for work as well as knowing your own ability to rationalize and be lazy. Even if 'being lazy' means chasing after the next shiny thing to study instead of working through some dull moments on the current work.
Right now, I can only imagine that if my days were spent just studying and writing about the things I'm interested in that I would somehow find a way to expand my interests beyond my capacity and be in the same predicament I am now in regards to balancing my time, energy and interest.