Get Into a Better Routine

Last week I rewatched Merlin Mann’s talk from Webvisions 2010, Bold Ideas and Insane Possibilities, and for the first time I understood some things he said about Facebook (which he hates). I quit Facebook in May of 2010, and all these months later, what clicked after rewatching this video was that there are mechanisms to keep you the user engaged and spending a lot of time doing nothing.

The worst kind is getting into a routine of looking at things that don’t matter.

A lot of what people do there isn’t very personal or meaningful, even less so directly to you. There are a lot of conversations between other people, and there are updates that alert you to pseudo social events that were triggered. These include likes and tags, surveys and invites. Most of it is activity that isn’t personal, creative, or that creates something that lasts.

What’s great about services like Tumblr and Posterous on the other hand is that while they still have a social aspect to them, their services are designed from their mobile apps, their post-by-email capabilities, and browser bookmarklets, to encourage users to post new content.

It’s a lot easier to make or share something, and it’s a lot harder to find hollow content. All of your content has meaning, and the content you see from others does as well.

Eventually, you get into a routine of making and sharing your art rather than your status.