A headquarters, not a portfolio

A portfolio is a document you prepare for someone else. You update it when you need something, usually a job, and you fill it with the version of your work that looks best in retrospect. Then you leave it alone until the next time you need something.

I've had that kind of site. I never opened it.

What I wanted instead

I wanted somewhere to put things while they are happening. The half-formed idea, the experiment that hasn't concluded, the note I'll want to find again in a year. A portfolio has no room for any of that, because none of it is finished and a portfolio is a list of finished things.

So this site has more than one speed:

• Work and build are the slow layer. Things I've shipped and can stand behind.
• Think is the middle layer. Essays when an idea is ready, and garden notes when it isn't.
• Explore and now are the fast layer. What I'm trying and what has my attention this month.

The rule I'm holding myself to

Publishing has to be cheaper than not publishing. If adding a note takes more than a new file and a few lines of text, I won't do it, and the site will quietly turn back into a portfolio.

That's the test. Ask me in a year whether it passed.