Cutting the Clutter: How I Restructured My Author Website and My Life

Restructuring My Website: A New Chapter for JohnShalomdotcom

This week has been one of those weeks where you feel like you’ve been at war with your own website—and finally won. I rolled up my sleeves, took a deep breath, and restructured johnshalomdotcom.

First, I renamed the categories. Gone are the confusing titles and irrelevant labels. Instead of the plain word “Books,” I now proudly display Shop Amazon Books—because let’s be honest, that’s exactly what I want readers to do. It looks goal-oriented, and it feels like a direction rather than a decoration.

Then came the heavy lifting: I deleted more than 200 articles. Yes, you read that right. These were not small posts either, but imports from my two former websites, maluthwealth.com and maluthfoundation.com. I had once moved them in when I sold those site slots to keep my Wealthy Affiliate membership alive. That was a survival strategy, and it worked back then. But survival is not the same as growth. Many of those articles were duplicates, irrelevant, or simply out of place on an author’s site. So, I made the tough call—they had to go. Painful, but necessary.

I also changed how articles show on the front end. Instead of nine articles per page (a buffet that overwhelms the eye), I reduced it to just three. Quality over quantity, calm over chaos. Readers can now breathe while scrolling, instead of feeling like they’ve stumbled into a digital marketplace shouting, Buy me! Read me! Click me!

Another victory: I added several legal pages—Terms and Conditions, Disclaimers, and more—thanks to ChatGPT-5. Before, I didn’t even know I needed these. Now they’re neatly tucked into the main menu, giving the site a professional backbone that says, “Yes, I’m an author, but I also mean business.”

But here’s the secret ingredient in this week’s success: I worked smarter, not just harder. I rested when I needed to. I brewed tea in my new electric kettle, sipped it in my new mug, and stretched my legs on my new bed with new bedsheets and a proper pillow. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t just wrestling with content—I was enjoying the fight.

This month has been about building a foundation, both online and offline. I now have a room, electricity, WiFi (less than $10/month), a chair, a table, a flask, and even a dustbin for dirty clothes. You may laugh at that detail, but believe me, without these essentials, it’s hard to think straight, let alone write.

The truth is: I’m in business like never before.

Being + Doing = Meaning.

And this week, both my website and my small rented room became living proof of that equation.