Hey friend,
Welcome to The Void, also known as The Black Hole Where Productivity Goes To Die, also known as The Weeks Between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don’t necessarily agree with the “how pointless everything is” bit, but I resonate with Jordan nonetheless.
We’re constantly being reminded that it’s “the most wonderful time of the year”, but it can also be a stressful and frantic time of year — especially for those of us who manage our own schedules and don’t get company-wide vacation time.
I love me some Christmas celebrations, but truthfully I’m more of an “all is calm” kinda guy, and around this time of year, I start getting overwhelmed. It's a pattern I've noticed in myself: when I get overwhelmed, my fuse gets short and I start to assume the worst in people. My clients are trying to take advantage of me. My wife has a hidden agenda. The support rep I’m dealing with is incompetent and determined to make my life hard, etc.
When I feel myself getting particularly Scroogy, I have to stop and remind myself of something that doesn’t come naturally to me, but something I believe deeply — we’re all better off if we assume that people have good intentions, and that they’re doing their best.
I should assume that my clients really value my work, and aren’t trying to ruin my holidays by adding last-minute scope changes to a project that should have wrapped up a week ago.
I should assume that Ren really didn’t mean to go over the budget we set for Christmas gifts (again).
I should assume that the customer support person on the other end of that “delayed order” email wants to help and is doing their best to get me a great product on time for Christmas.
Assuming the best in people isn’t just some pithy ‘feel good’ phrase either, it’s good for you and your business. Personally, I want people to give me the benefit of assuming the best in me — it’s exhausting having my guard up all the time.
Professionally, if you assume your customers are always trying to cheat from you, you end up building a business around preventing cheats rather than helping honest customers. It’s a subtle but crucial difference.
Anyyyywayyys, I assume that you’re enjoying these emails and want to know that I’ve partnered with Christy Price for her “12 Days of Christmas” sale starting TOMORROW. See more below 😉.
Thanks for being here, and for my fellow semi-Scrooges, hang in there.
Keep Building,
Will
12 Days of Deals by Christy Price
Everybody’s favorite Christy Price is doing a fun 12 Days of Deals promotion with a bunch of peeps in the Squarespace community, including yours truly.
If you want some of the best deals around, be sure to sign up for her 12 Days of Deals email blast.
New Article: Adding Captions to Background Images
Learn how to create a background caption that’s positioned perfectly in the bottom right of your section. We recently released a plugin with some additional bells and whistles, but in this tutorial you’ll learn how to setup a basic background caption.
Curious Coder
Code Curious is my membership for professional Squarespace designers. As a member, you get exclusive access to the Code Catalogue (with over 90 copy-and-paste code snippets), the Targeting Library (over 270 Squarespace CSS Selectors), and exclusive tutorials.
$15 / mo.
Unlimited use on client projects.
Cancel anytime.
Below are the latest updates to the membership. My favorite is the Image Tilt Cursor Chaser, a really fun an interactive image effect.
Targeting Library
The targeting library has over 270 CSS Selectors, with examples, to target elements in Squarespace.
New selectors added for video block - change the color of the controls, controls background, and add a border around the video block.
New selectors added for the new “Product Add-Ons” feature that Squarespace recently released. Add backgrounds, change border radii, or change text styles.
Code Catalogue New Releases
The Code Catalogue is a library over 90 advanced customizations for Squarespace websites. (see all snippets)
Image Tilt Cursor Chaser
Watch as your images tilt perspective as you scroll and your mouse moves around the page.
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 noted, plugin updates happen automatically.
Have a question? Get in touch.