My first forays into web design were for purely practical reasons. I needed a site, had no money, and the only friend of mine capable of doing it was too busy. Therefore, I thought, why not?
I still remember the pride I felt at completing that first site, though looking back on it it was fairly ugly it was still my baby and will always have a special place in my heart. Surprisingly, after the stress of getting that first site live and having actual people actually use it without it breaking (oh my that was scary!), I realised how much fun I was having and set about learning everything I could get my grubby little hands on.
My main problem nowadays is that the initial enthusiasm never left. For every paid job I have there are 3 fully formed (and in my opinion fantastic) ideas that I never get time to build on. Coupled with my naturally short attention span this means there are projects I’ve had in the pipeline for over 2 years that I add to every now and then and are still only about halfway done.
As with Leonard da Quirm, most of these ideas are for my own amusement with little or no thought given to any practical value they may have for the world. I just want to play with code!
Recently I came up with a very simple plan to help the situation before it spirals forever out of my control. Knowing that I need some sort of motivation to get things done (or I’d just sit reading, sketching plans for new sites and eating egg sandwiches all day every day) I’ve now added a list of all the tasks currently awaiting my attention right on my desktop wallpaper.
It’s pretty effective. Whenever I turn on the computer, minimize firefox to try and find the elusive file I just downloaded, or even have my browser in less than full-screen mode, a basic todo list showing how many tasks I’ve completed and which are still to do greets me.
In conclusion then I will now complete projects instead of going off on tangents so often, just for the satisfaction of seeing another line crossed out in the top right of my desktop. Genius.
Write blog post
Get more sandwiches



Hi Michelle,
Try the Rainlendar app.
5:51 am on 26 Jan