This Advent: Simplify

Every few years, I spend some time trying to trim any excess off my online presence (sites and social media profiles). For some time, that resulted in consolidation of many websites into one. Lately, as I've built up a larger network of sites and services, I've simply tried to ensure that all are manageable and don't require too much of my time to be effective.

My bandwidth for managing multiple sites and accounts has been reduced this year as I've started a new 'in-the-office' job, and also have a beautiful baby (almost 1 year old!) to care for.

Thus, I'm trying to whittle things down again during this Advent; what better time than the new liturgical year to refocus my online presence and work on making it align with my calling in lifeā€”to be a good husband and father, and to give honor to God in all things.

I'm also going to be working on making sure that the sites and profiles I do maintain are as simple and efficient as they can be, so people visiting and following will have the best experience possible, and get right to what they'd like to see. On this site, I've removed the 'About' block that has been present in the sidebar for years (I think since 2004!), so now there are only a couple contextual things over on the right like search and an RSS link.

Advent is a great time for you, too, to see what distractions you can cut out of your life, your routine, and your online persona. If you feel called to do so, I encourage you to spend the next 24 days praying and working on simplifying your life! Mary and Joseph surely cut out a lot of distractions when they went on their journey to Bethlehem, and brought Jesus into the world with only what they could carry on a donkey!