A freelance client asked me today to add a promotional pop-up to their website. Has there ever been a person happy to be interrupted by a pop-up? It’s such a non-consensual way to push something in your face when you know exactly what you went looking for.
Information is no longer a problem in this world. But, as Derek Sivers once said, “If [more] information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.”
What we want is value. Be valuable and no one will have trouble finding you.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit after finishing Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. (I even took down some notes on my personal website.) Newport makes the argument to declutter all this optional technology from your life for the purpose of only leveraging the good stuff intentionally for your values.
That’s no small feat, but it’s real. We should be helping people get rid of distractions. Make life easier so we can find better problems. We shouldn’t be worrying about paying for a doctor visit or our education. We should be exploring worlds together.
The problem with a connected world is that there has never been more annoying fucks wanting to take up little bits of your time. They have horrible stories and bad jokes. They want you to buy their t-shirts.
The world wants your attention. And you have every decision to make, starting with “do I click on that pop-up, or no?”