When I started the project of converting this website to a blog, I had no idea that it would take me more than a month to get everything transferred over!!
For the past few years I have been encouraging my clients to set their websites up as blogs, and I have been playing with "static blogs" for the past few years myself. With all the changes to WordPress, it is so much easier for the small business person or solo-preneur to create, modify, and maintain their site as a blog. The freedom and flexibility as well as sheer number of plugins and widgets gives back the power to the independent business person – and saves a lot of money for the person who is just starting out.
However, I forgot to take into consideration that this site has been around since 1997, and currently has close to a hundred individual articles.
There is always a balance to be considered between time and money, and this is one time I would have been smarter to have simply paid someone to do the work instead of doing it myself (wondering if I'll ever really learn that one about letting go)! I didn't even think about how many links would need to be verified, or how many other details would need to be addressed in order to bring the site back online after the restructuring.
I just knew that since it's become so much easier to maintain an active site using wordpress, I wanted to make that leap with the Career Life Institute. And since I was already in the middle of re-evaluating and shifting several key fundamentals for myself personally, having a little downtime with the site didn't seem such a bad thing. I didn't even notice until I was about half-way through that there were more little pieces to deal with than I had accounted for.
Any time you restructure things – whether in your personal life or in your career – you discover thoughts, ideas, pieces that just no longer seem to fit anywhere. When you attempt to hold on to those things which have lost their usefulness – instead of streamlining for the present so you can anticipate the future, you risk becoming inflexible, outmoded and being left by the side of the road yourself. The challenge again comes down to a balance of values, and an updated vision that lights the way.
I'm reminded of something Phil Bookman, Vice President of Silton-Bookman Systems used to say every time we upgraded the software: "God was able to create the heavens and the earth in only 6 days because he did not have an install base!"
So, please forgive our dust as the new site settles in. We are bound to find dead-end links and gaps where pages used to be. And we'd appreciate you telling us if you find yourself at a 404 page unexpectedly. We hope you'll continue along with us as we make our way forward.