You're Nitpicking
Reorganizing for a better experience.
I want to be someone who engages effortlessly online, but I'm not. Maybe you relate?
Being present in the digital world is, for me, very effort-full. I like making things far more than managing them after. Growing in public, or sharing while figuring stuff out in real-time, sometimes means updating what you just finished creating. And reorganizing your potentially outdated, but not that outdated, work doesn't feel very glamorous. In fact, it's tedious. I know many people who don't care about doing that upkeep. But I do—I care a lot, even though it sucks.
I'm someone who looks through old posts from other creators. So, if people like me come browsing through my stuff, I want them to find up-to-date descriptions of what to expect from Becoming Unobstructed and everything on the site. Which is why I'm nitpicky. I even wrote about wanting to update things so they feel more reader-first and less "resume chic."
Today, I did something about it:
Navigation
- Added a URL redirect so that theunobstructed.com automatically sends people to the blog. Since the blog itself is technically hosted on a subdomain, I couldn’t make it the default homepage. But this way, now it kind of acts like one!
- Shifted the current/previous homepage to serve as an “about” page instead. It’s not listed in the menu, but it’s where you’ll go if you click on the site logo. And it’s now linked in my author bio on the blog for a more subtle navigation.
User Experience
- Changed the menu, simplifying it to "blog, podcast, newsletter"
- Coded in a site search bar next to the blog post tags in the header.
- Flipped the order of the blog side panel to match the menu. That way, my author bio sits “last", keeping relevant info for the reader up top.
Content Cleanup
- Took “ways to work with me” out of the menu—now it’s only accessible from the options listed on that new about page. Again, going for subtle so the writing (and reading) comes first.
- Switched up the wording of Becoming Unobstructed's Substack description, "start here" page, and "about" page (which I have set to be only visible on the Substack mobile app).
- Swapped the featured image of the Substack publication's "start here" post, which is pinned on its homepage.
The goal here is to make things feel like a place for readers to explore. There’s still more to clean up, and normally I wouldn't draw attention to these things, but that's the whole point of growing in public. So, up next...
- On Substack:
- Clean up essay sign-offs, podcast episode show notes, embedded redirects, and anything that now feels off-brand.
- On theunobstructed.com:
- Go through each essay and podcast post, update the formatting of embedded redirects to their full post on Substack.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
34/365
What small details do you pay attention to that others insist don't matter? Is nitpicking worth it for you?
onward.
-dmac