I love the internet - too much, in fact. I could waste days on end just playing around on it. Last week I figured I'd need an amicable divorce from it, just to feel human again.

As it turns out, my hiatus lasted a week, but it could've been more, as I intended to take the entire month of December off. It was an experiment, a way to find out if I could last an entire month without posting something. Seven days appears to be my maximum.

For those of you following along, yes, this has something to do with my GTD app. You see, when I was writing up some tasks, I have a maddeningly long list of things yet to accomplish. However, today I decided to get some of the weeds out of the flower-beds, if you will. I have a problem with the footer, so I needed to get that worked out.

Then, the old habits kicked in, and I was experimenting, messing around, and generally learning new things about how WordPress, CSS, and human nature collide. You can see the handiwork in the footer, but it was less about making it easier to get around the site, and more about making things easier to manage. Today I put in these in the left-most column:

WITH A LINKNESS
SYNDICATION
ARCHIVES
NEWS
CONTACT FORM
COLOPHON
PODCAST

"Fine," you're thinking, "that's rather simple. Wasn't that stuff there before?" Yes, yes it was. The problem being, it didn't look simple. It looked like a giant list of things to click on. I made them bigger, more spaced out, and simpler. The giant whitespace beside it doesn't hurt to draw it to your attention, does it? See how making something less complicated sometimes helps you use it?

That was the key to John's GTD app. There aren't endless tags and commands for you to use. Just the few, and just enough to get it to work. Then, when you've got it working, you either complete them or you don't. It's as simple as humanly possible - yes or no.

Thankfully, this will complete a myriad set of goals I've had for weeks, and will allow me to concentrate on something I haven't in a while: the outside. Now if I could just remember what you're supposed to do out there, then I'd be set.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-11-28T22:07:40.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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  similarterms: things making simple giant month footer problem today simpler list entire complete week days human easier spaced contact thinking fine