Hey friend,
Winter Is Coming - and I’m already stressing about the end-of-year scramble that always takes place during the black hole of productivity that exists between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that if a project needs to be done by the end of the year, that means it needs to be wrapped before Thanksgiving (late November for you non-Americans). So we’re pushing hard to wrangle clients, check in on where we’re at with bigger projects, and re-establish hard goals and deadlines right now.
I’ve also learned that it’s really important for you AND for your business to build in a little bit of downtime for yourself towards the end of the year. Even if you don’t really get into celebrating the holidays (we do), it’s a great time for a natural pause and gives you a chance to take a step back and think high-level about your business. There is a natural rhythm to the world and fighting against this particular rhythm by trying to be productive here isn’t a battle I choose to fight.
My business mentor, Barney, would say it’s a good time to work ON your business instead of IN your business. Ren and I have realized how true that is, and this year we’re trying to be really intentional about keeping our work-load light and realistic towards the end of the year.
These are easy ideas to get behind. “Take time to be strategic!” “Don’t get lost in the grind!” But it gets harder when it means turning down projects/work.
One of my favorite designers Slacked me the other day about starting a project that would require a good bit of learning something new on my part. After ignoring it for a few days (my toxic trait) I messaged him back and said I couldn’t add anything else to my plate this year, but would love to work on a project like that early next year if another came up.
I struggle with saying no, especially since I really like collaborating with this particular designer. However, I committed to taking on less between now and the end of the year so that I can be intentional about planning for next year, and I needed to stick to that commitment.
I share this to hopefully give you some inspiration/permission to say “no” to things that you may normally jump into. Especially if saying no would give you more time and perspective to do the work of strategically thinking about and working on your business, while clients and projects and deadlines are nestled all snug in their beds.
Also his response made me giggle and appreciate having good people to partner with.
Give your business the gift of saying “No” to something this pre-holiday season, and maybe that “No” will make room for something even better.
Keep Building,
Will
New Plugin: Section Randomizer
Randomly display a single section, from a group of sections, each time the page loads. Great for the hero section of a website, testimonials, or just general delight for your website.
New Tutorial: Conditional Cart
Conditionally display the cart in your header if, and only if, your customer has something in their cart. I use something called a MutationObserver (in javascript-speak) which runs a function whenever something on that element changes. There’s lots of different ways something like this could be used, so if you enjoy jumping into to the code of it all, you might be interested in this one. And if you’re not interested in the code of it all, you can just grab the code too.
Curious Coder
Here are the latest updates to the Code Curious Membership. The most popular this week is the Main Nav Spotlight effect.
$15 / mo.
Unlimited use on client projects.
Cancel anytime.
Targeting Library New Release
Recently, I’ve added new targets for styling the built-in Search Page in Squarespace. You can style the color theme of the page, Search Bar, and Search Results.
Code Catalogue New Releases
Main Nav Spotlight Effect
Spotlight the currently hovered nav item.
Section Stacks
Stack your page sections as you scroll down the page.
Search Page Color Theme
Adjust the color theme of your Search Page.
Squarespace Podcast
How to Avoid the AI Takeover - with Omari Harebin & Yours Truly. We talk all things AI in web design, entrepreneurship, and education. It was a really fun and wide-ranging conversation.
Strength in Numbers - Christy Price & I join as guests on the No Surprises podcast with Kelsey & Mallory from Week of the Website. Christy and I talk about partnering and building things together as well as building community online.
The Truth About Passive Income - with Omari Harebin & Christy Price about creating "Passive" income. I put passive in quotes because neither of them like that term. Have a listen here.
Plugin Updates
Squarespace is constantly changing and updating its platform; you can trust that we’re updating and maintaining our plugins to account for these changes. Unless otherwise notes, plugin updates happen automatically.
Have a question? Get in touch.