When Technology Doesn’t Do What You Want

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but why is it that so often it makes our lives more difficult? And not only makes our lives difficult but actually creates a huge time-suck?

I just spent an hour and a half writing what I thought was a decent fun review of a book I’m fond of. I captured the book cover. I got my SEO in order. I wanted to post the review today and move onto other commitments. But as I was saving the review, and just before I was about to hit Publish, WordPress timed out. The Save circle spun for many minutes. When I hit Refresh, the fun review reverted to what had been saved as half of a clunky first draft. I was shocked. I was furious. I couldn’t remember one word of what I’d previously written.

Supposed to Save But Didn’t

After chatting with an innocent and nice but ineffectual WordPress helper, I could not retrieve my review. It was somewhere on the internet, lost in the ether. This has happened to me before with WordPress. It’s actually happened several times. It’s supposed to automatically save my drafts but it didn’t. Maybe it’s the endless plug ins. Maybe it’s the millions of choices. I don’t know. But I’m tired of this happening. I don’t want to wrestle with WordPress. I don’t want to spend hours figuring it out. I want to get content online and move on.

Now the entire course of my Tuesday has changed. I won’t be honoring those other commitments. I’ll be rewriting a review I can’t remember one word of. I’ll be shopping for blogging platforms. And so, I won’t be posting for awhile. I’ll be simplifying. I’ll be streamlining. I’ll appear on the internet again with a different site. When I do, I’ll be offering a richer experience that won’t take me hours to produce and more importantly, one that will better serve my readers.