Strike While the Iron is Hot!

I thought about this the other day while I was reading a thread on a forum talking about what's needed to get your website up and running.  While there is much to cover when creating your website (I've written on the thought process for creating your website here) the first and best step is to just get started. I would say that if you've spent a lot of time and effort thinking about the design, the CMS, your content, how you want it laid out etc. but you've still not started your site, I'd say put your planning pads aside and get to work.

It's easy for the paralysis of analysis to set in. Get to work and you'll see how problems start to solve themselves, while new ones will appear.  But the fact that you're now in it and working on it lends itself to finding solutions now that you're engaged. It's likely that you'll get stuck at some point, but don't worry about it.  Move your focus to another area and come back to it.  I know that this in particular has worked for me. There have been times where I was so focused on finding a solution to a particular challenge I was facing that I had to step away and come back later.  And, sure enough, once I came back to it the solution was there and the problem was quickly resolved.

So get to it - go buy your domain if you haven't already done it and get your hosting account set up.  Go ahead and get started on your site, start publishing pages and look at them in a browser.  You'll get a great feeling of accomplishment from just starting and in my experience you can ride the wave of this success to getting really engaged in getting your site and make incredible progress.  So stop planning, fire up your computer and get to work!