I recently built a small project called DeafIndex—a simple, no-frills directory for the deaf community. Nothing fancy, just something useful that people can actually navigate without friction. You can check it out here: deafindex.html

What stood out to me wasn’t just the site itself, but how I built it. I didn’t start with a full plan or a long list of features. I had a general idea and moved on it. The goal was simple: create something clean, easy to use, and actually helpful. Instead of overthinking every detail, I kept coming back to one question: what’s the simplest version of this? That question ended up guiding every decision along the way.

A big part of that process was using Claude as a thought partner. Not in a way where it was doing the work for me, but in a way that helped me think clearer. I’d ask things like, “Am I overcomplicating this?” or “What actually matters here?” That shift alone made a difference. It kept me grounded in simplicity instead of drifting toward unnecessary complexity.

As the project took shape, I made a conscious effort to keep everything lightweight. No heavy frameworks, no extra features just for the sake of it. I landed on a simple, JSON-driven structure that makes the site easy to manage and update over time. It’s not overengineered. It just works, and that was the point from the beginning.

Using Claude didn’t replace the thinking. If anything, it required more clarity. I had to be intentional about what I wanted to build and what I was willing to leave out. But it removed a lot of the friction between idea and execution, and that changes everything. Less time stuck, more time building, and more ideas actually making it out into the world.