I always talk about how important it is to keep your portfolio updated. And by “updated,” I don’t mean launching a redesign once every one or two years. I mean continually adding your latest projects, optimizing and refining your design for the current moment.
An outdated portfolio does you a disservice, at its best positioning you for work you don’t necessarily want to be doing anymore and at its worst, making you look out of touch. That said, I know how easy it is to let your site fall by the wayside.
My own portfolio is never as current as I want it to be. Ideally, I would fine-tune it every month or so. In reality, I’m adding projects and refreshing the design every few months. So when I saw the “Now page” trend happening (started by Derek Sivers), I decided to jump on the bandwagon.
See my NOW page here
A Now page serves almost like a bulletin board. While your portfolio as a whole presents the work you already did, your Now page shows what you are doing right now. I’m not diving into projects here like I do with my case studies. I’m simply sharing a brief list of what I’m focused on in this very moment.
For me, at least so far, this has a few benefits. A big one: Because I used to give talks a lot, I hear from people often asking me to speak at their event. I’m taking a hiatus from speaking engagements right now, so I note that at the top of my NOW page. It saves those people time writing to me and myself time (and guilt) turning those people down.
My Now page, as Sivers points out, is a good way to check my priorities. Is the work I’m doing right now something I would be proud to add to this page? Am I no longer doing what was on my list before? Should I be?
I have yet to see how long I’ll keep it up, but for now I’m liking the Now page. In any case, it’s a low commitment. I spend 5 minutes updating the page every couple weeks, and I try to have some fun with it. Sometimes that motivates me to work on the rest of my portfolio while I’m at it, which is never a bad thing.
