We’re 24 hours away from launching the brand-new website for my day job, and my brain hasn’t stopped buzzing for days.
Right now, the background hum is just a ton of insecurity and anxiety. I keep running through every task in my head — checking mobile layouts, clicking through the site, making sure nothing shifted when I wasn’t looking. I’m building an internal checklist of every last step and the order they need to happen in.
I don’t have a special launch ritual, unless you count “check it again” as a ritual. But I do know this: the moment it’s time to start the domain name propagation — the process that tells the internet’s servers where to find the new site — I will feel my heart rate spike. That click is second only to “deleting something important” in my list of web development stressors. I’ll take a few deep breaths, click the button, and then… cue the absolute panic.
I’ll be frantically reloading to see when the DNS changes take effect. (If you’re not a web person, think of it like telling the post office your new address and then pacing by the mailbox to see when the first piece of mail shows up.)
Once I see the new site start to appear, I’ll immediately launch into the same routine I’ve been doing for days: walking through every page, checking on every device, hoping everything works exactly as it should — and fixing anything that doesn’t.
I wish I could say I spend launch day soaking in the moment, but there’s no “sit back and celebrate” for me. Even if coworkers are offering congratulations, I’m in full-on triage mode:
Re-checking analytics to make sure they’re tracking correctly.
Clicking through every single link.
Confirming every photo loads.
Logically, I know nothing should have changed between the moment before the button was clicked and the moment after — but the truth is, you never quite know. And until I’m satisfied, there’s no relaxing.
By 24 hours after launch, the adrenaline will start to fade… but I’ll still be glued to analytics, bug reports, and my own walkthroughs. After a few hours, I’ll start to breathe again and move into planning the next steps.
That “emotional crash” people talk about after a big project? I don’t really let it happen. I just keep making lists.
I think most people don’t realize how stressful a launch can be, or how many moving parts there are behind the scenes. This time, I’m grateful to have a whole team and a supportive IT department — but as the webmaster, I still feel a heavy personal responsibility for everything to go right.
So tomorrow, I’ll take that deep breath, click the button, and ride out the 48-hour rollercoaster. Hopefully by then, I’ll be able to say it went smoothly… and maybe even enjoy it for a minute.
Photo by PJ Gal-Szabo on Unsplash