The Page With Its Sleeves Rolled Up: Why I Keep a /now Page

Most personal sites have an About page that hasn't changed since the last redesign. Mine included, for a while. It was polished, friendly and about as current as a festival lineup from a previous summer. Then I added a /now page, and the whole site suddenly felt less like a brochure and more like a place where a person actually lives.

If you haven't come across the idea, a /now page is a short, dated snapshot of what you're up to at the moment. Not a biography. Not a CV. Not a newsletter. Just a handful of honest lines that answer the question a friend might ask down the pub: what are you doing with yourself at the moment?

As I write this in November 2026, mine is three bullets and a date stamp. That's it. And it does more work for ChrisJM than any glossy paragraph about my values ever did.

The page people actually want

An About page is an anchor. A /now page is the weather. One tells you where someone is from; the other tells you what they're wearing, roughly, and whether they've got time for a coffee.

The idea has been floating around the personal web for years, and it's popular because it solves a very ordinary problem. When someone lands on a one-person site, they don't usually need the full origin story. They want to know if you're open to work, mid-project, taking a break, learning something new or up to your elbows in a redesign. A /now page gives them that at a glance.

It also gives the site owner a reason to open the editor without writing a full blog post. That matters more than it sounds. A site that only changes when you've got a 1,200-word essay in you will feel static. A site with a small, dated page feels alive even when the blog is quiet.

Why the About page is the wrong tool

About pages are written in the past tense, even when they're not. They're summaries. They get approved by an imaginary committee in your head. By the time you've tweaked the wording for the fourth time, it's less a description of you and more a small monument to your best intentions.

A /now page has a get-out clause built in: it's allowed to be temporary. You can say you're learning something badly, or that you're between projects, or that you're mostly drinking tea and fixing CSS. The date stamp does a lot of heavy lifting. It says: this was true then. It may not be true now. That's fine.

For a UK creator with a modest site, that honesty is worth more than polish. We're not running corporate communications here. We're running a corner of the internet with a kettle in it.

My /now page, line by line

Mine currently starts with a plain line: 'Updated 9 November 2026.' No clever headline, no mood board. Just the date, because a /now page without a date is an About page in disguise.

Then come three bullets:

• Making: a small project shelf for the site, plus a few short posts about the bits of running a personal website nobody warns you about.
• Learning: enough CSS to be dangerous, and how to write shorter sentences without losing the point.
• Looking for: interesting conversations, half-decent collaboration ideas, and recommendations for good independent sites to read over lunch.

After that, one line pointing to my contact page and one line saying the page is updated roughly monthly. No signup form. No manifesto. No list of every book I've ever owned.

The first bullet is the useful one. It tells a visitor what I'm actually building, not what I'd like to be building. The second keeps me honest about the fact that I'm still learning. The third opens a door without sounding like a pitch. That's the whole job.

Three bullets is plenty

There's a temptation to turn /now into a dashboard: goals, habits, reading list, podcast queue, fitness targets, five-year plan. Don't. A /now page isn't a productivity system. It's a postcard.

Three bullets is enough because three bullets force you to choose. If everything is on the page, nothing stands out. If it takes twenty minutes to update, you won't update it. If it reads like a performance review, visitors will quietly back away.

Monthly is a good rhythm. Weekly is too much for most people. Quarterly is technically fine but usually means the page is out of date for two-thirds of the year. I've settled on a calendar reminder on the first Sunday of each month, which is also when I do my small site sweep: links, backups, plugin updates and a quick look at the /now page.

A template you can pinch

Here's the whole thing, stripped down:

## Now
_Updated: Month Year_

- **Making:** one thing you're building or writing
- **Learning:** one thing you're getting better at
- **Looking for:** one thing you'd welcome from other people

[Say hello](/contact)

That's it. You can add a line about where you are if it's relevant, or a note that you're taking a break. But resist the urge to turn it into a diary. The page is a snapshot, not a scrapbook.

Rules to stop it rotting

First, date it. Every single time. A /now page without a date is just an About page with commitment issues.

Second, update it when you update the site, not when you remember. Put it in the same routine as your backups or your link check. Small habits beat big intentions.

Third, write what's true, not what sounds impressive. 'Learning JavaScript' is fine. 'Leveling up my full-stack journey' is a cry for help.

Fourth, don't apologise for being out of date. Just fix it. Nobody needs a paragraph explaining why the page hasn't been touched since the last bank holiday.

Fifth, keep the door open. A /now page should end with a way to get in touch, because the whole point is that you're a person, not a brochure.

The humblebrag trap

The quickest way to ruin a /now page is to make it a quiet boast. You know the sort: four side projects, three podcasts, a newsletter, a marathon and a sourdough starter, all described as if they're merely happening to you.

I'm not immune. Every so often I catch myself drafting a bullet that sounds suspiciously like a LinkedIn post wearing a cardigan. The fix is usually to make it smaller and more specific. Not 'working on something exciting' but 'rewriting the projects page so it doesn't look like a filing cabinet'. Not 'exploring opportunities' but 'up for a chat about small independent sites'.

Specific is friendly. Grand is exhausting.

A small page with a big job

ChrisJM is a personal site, not a platform. It doesn't need a content strategy that could fill a whiteboard. It needs a few pages that feel looked-after. The /now page is one of those pages. It gives regular visitors a reason to check back, gives new visitors a quick sense of the person behind the posts, and gives me a gentle nudge to keep the site current.

If your own site has an About page that's gone a bit museum-like, try adding a /now page this week. Three bullets, one date, one link. Update it next month. That's the whole trick. No rebrand required.