Review of 2019

Another year has flown past so here’s my annual review. I don’t expect anyone to read this. It’s mostly for my own benefit so I can remember what I’ve been up to!

The date 2019 but with the zero replaced by the Webscape Gardener 'web flower' logo.

What went well in 2019

It’s been a good year for my business: I’ve had a steady stream of work, including work from new clients, existing clients and past clients coming back for more!

Among other things, I launched a couple of e-commerce sites early in the year, created some application forms for an art society exhibition, did some styling and performance fixes on a few sites for an agency. One of my newest clients is an Agile expert – over the course of six months we’ve gradually building and developing her site which is now packed with resources for product and project managers, including membership features, online courses and printable downloads. It’s still a work in progress but it’s a really exciting project to be working on.

One of my resolutions for 2019 was to get to grips with Gutenberg, the new WordPress block editor. I appreciate the way Gutenberg lets editors create more interesting pages without needing to code but, with my editor hat on, I still find it a bit clunky to use.

As a developer, the challenge is to make it as easy as possible for my clients to use it. One way I’ve done this is to code a colour palette into the themes I’ve developed so my clients can just click on the colours they want to use for fonts and backgrounds. I’ve also added some reusable blocks for clients so they don’t need to work out how to create an effect, I’ve done it for them. I’m just beginning to explore using Gutenberg with custom fields. There’s still a lot more for me to learn here – and many more ways I can make things easier for my clients!

I’ve found the Atomic Blocks collection (from the same developers as my preferred theme framework, Genesis) really useful.

Following on from last year, I’m still doing my daily French practice and am currently on a “streak” of over 620 consecutive days using Duolingo.

Room for improvement…

Yet again, my own website has been a little neglected, although I have tidied up some of the content.

Oh dear, my idea about a task management system has slipped again.

However, on a business management front, I have restructured my maintenance plans. Instead of just selling time by the hour, I’m about to introduce three support packages which, hopefully, will help my small business clients as well as my bigger clients.

Aims for 2020

  • I *still* need to sort out a task-management system. This is even more important as I launch my new maintenance packages.
  • Continue finding new ways to take advantage of Gutenberg.
  • As always, keep learning!

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