After sprinting towards last week’s big launch, I find myself in that lull where I need to decide what to focus on next. There’s a lot to choose from, but that’s what makes it tricky. The most recent work was all time-sensitive—everything had to be up and running in time for the EU’s new SCA regulation. But now, I don’t have anything time-sensitive, so it’s more difficult to pick.

Since Cushion is now what I’m calling a “lifetime project”, where I’ll work on it little by little for decades, think in terms of years instead of weeks, and ride into the sunset (not that sunset), I have the freedom and flexibility to work on something because it fulfills a creative itch or “just because”—not everything needs to push the needle. That’s what’s going to keep me sane and enthusiastic through these decades. For example, I definitely don’t need to spend time migrating the running costs page to the new CMS/design, but I did tinker on it this weekend, and I don’t feel bad about that—it’s simply something I was interested in pursuing for a few hours.

Now that I’m back to being the only person working on Cushion, I need to wear all of the hats and hop between the frontend and the backend and the marketing site. When I go heads-down on a new part of the app for weeks (like the account page), I use up my internal “energy bar” for the app, so I need to switch gears to the marketing site or to design. After migrating the blog to the new CMS, I didn’t feel the motivation to migrate another page, so I retreated to the app. It’s a cycle that actually works pretty well. At this point, I think it’s okay to spend a couple weeks putzing around on little things—maybe tackling a few “fast-follows” from these recent launches—to switch up the pace when it comes to the size of the work. In parallel, I can think about the right direction to take.

I’m eager to migrate the rest of the low-hanging legacy views to the new system (login, sign up, etc.), but those could certainly snowball because I’m tempted to require email confirmation upon signup, or even go back to requesting an invite. (I’m growing tired of tire-kickers and designers looking for inspiration.) I could migrate the rest of the marketing site to the new CMS, like the support section, about page, and running costs, but that would all be for me—none of that would make a difference for the user. Or I could dive heads-first into migrating the next part of the app, which will most likely be invoicing. That is guaranteed to snowball, but it’s long overdue—and I’m excited to migrate more of the app.

For now, I’ll keep it casual and see where I gravitate over the next couple weeks. On the bright side, I’m excited about everything, which makes it more difficult to choose. I’m confident, however, that as I work on little things here or there, I’ll find a specific itch and know exactly what to work on next.