Jeffrey Zeldman, talking about the (semi-controversial) redesign of his own personal site:
Even our best clients can sometimes push back, and even our most thrilling projects typically contain some element of compromise. A personal site is where you don’t have to compromise. Even if you lose some readers. Even if some people hate what you’ve done. Even if others wonder why you aren’t doing what everyone else who knows what’s what is doing.
Great points here. A lot of the work I did here on nickschaden.com was based on experimentation that I could only toy with on other paid jobs. Doing something for only yourself – a personal site, side project, something else fun on Github – is sometimes our best opportunity for growth.