What a now page is, and how to keep one current
A now page is a single page, usually at /now, that says what you're focused on at this point in your life: the work, the project, the place, the thing you're learning. Unlike an about page, it's meant to change. The idea was popularised by Derek Sivers in 2015. The only rules worth keeping: be specific, date it, and update it every few months.
Why people add one
An about page answers "who are you?"; the /now one answers "what are you up to?". That second question is what old colleagues, clients and friends actually wonder when they visit your site after a while. It also does something for the writer: listing your current priorities in public makes it obvious when there are too many of them. Derek Sivers, who started the idea, keeps a directory of personal sites with one at nownownow.com.
What to put on it
- Where you are, if you're happy to share: city or country, not an address.
- Your main work: the job, the client project, the business. One or two lines each.
- A personal project: the book, the garden, the training plan.
- What you're learning or reading.
- What you're not doing: "not taking new clients until June" is useful to the people who were about to ask.
- The date it was last updated, at the top or bottom. Undated, it's just an about page that's wrong.
Keep it short: a few hundred words at most, in plain first person. Specific beats impressive. A typical entry might read: "Working three days a week on a museum app; the rest on a guide to cycling the Wales coast. Learning Welsh, badly. Not taking new projects before spring." That is the whole thing, and it is enough. "Rewriting chapter four of a novel about a lighthouse" tells a reader more than "exploring creative writing".
Side by side with an about page
| About page | /now | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | Who you are and what you've done | What you're doing at the moment |
| Changes | Rarely | Every few months |
| Tone | Considered, a little formal | Casual, a progress note |
| Date shown | Optional | Essential |
Keeping it current
The hard part isn't writing it; it's coming back. Put a reminder in your calendar every three months, or tie updates to natural moments: a new job, a move, the end of a project, a new year. When you update, rewrite rather than append, so the page stays a snapshot and not a log. If you'd like a record of past versions, keep them yourself, or let your site's version history hold them.
Making one with Anticode
A now page for a personal site is a single extra page. Multi-page sites work in Anticode, but the separate pages come from a fixed set (Work, Shop, Services, About, Pricing, FAQ, Book, Contact), and Now isn't one of them. Two ways round that: a CMS collection called "now", which is served at /now/, holding one entry you rewrite each time; or a dated "Now" section on your home or About page. Ask for either when you describe the site, or later with a change request in a sentence, then check the result in the preview. For the site around it, see the personal website page.
Updating is where the tools matter. Edit the text in place in the visual editor, change the date, and publish; or ask for the change in words. Saves are kept as versions, the most recent ones up to a number set by your plan, so you can look back at an earlier version of the page in version history and restore it if you need to. Link to it from your home page and navigation with the word "Now", which people familiar with the idea will recognise.
Limits and small gotchas
- /now only comes from a collection. A collection called "now" gives you that address; a section on another page doesn't, so check the published address before sharing it.
- No automatic "last updated" date. Change the date yourself when you edit.
- No feed or notifications. Visitors see the update when they visit; if you want to tell people, mention it in a newsletter or post.
- Version history isn't a public archive. Old versions are for you, not visitors; if you want a public list of past nows, keep it as a section on the page.
Questions people ask
How often should the page be updated?
Whenever something significant changes, and at least every few months. If it's more than a year old, update it or take it down.
Does it have to live at the /now address?
No, but /now is the convention, and people who know the idea will try that address first.
Is a now page useful for a business?
For a one-person business, yes: it's a natural place to say what you're working on and whether you're taking on work.