Information Junkie
consuming content as an escape
Hello and welcome to another issue of my newsletter. I hope you are fine. This week I share a bit on my messy relationship with information.
Don’t forget to share
Just like every junkie looking for the next fix, I find myself opening tabs to articles, saving some to Pocket, bookmarking some and then never having enough time to read them all. Plus, my emails1, got the hang of it this week with my unread emails getting less than 60. The Youtube videos I’ve saved for later?? I end up watching half of them only halfway before I get distracted again.
I have tried to fix my content consumption or track what articles I read for the nth time. Still working on that.
But here is the point, you can’t consume all the content produced, so you might as well consume quality ones.
Then how do you know content is of high quality without consuming it? Well, you almost don’t. Most times, you have to consume it before you get to know it is quality content.
However, if you find someone interesting (read as having similar taste or shares quality content, you can use him/her as your filter).
While for the last 27 days, I have logged out of algorithm-generated content sources like Twitter and Instagram.2
The problem with information overload is that you:
Get distracted: While this is the least of your problems. If you get distracted enough, you’d probably lose your job, which isn’t a small problem after all.
Can’t think clearly: If you can’t think clearly, I am sorry you already know the bazillion of problems that comes with it.
Here are some readings I have been doing to help track what I consume and increase the quality.
Readings
How to deal with Information Overload
How to Improve Your Content Diet in 2021
That wraps it up for this week. Let me know what method works for you.
Extra: I’ve taken extra effort to avoid any breaking news unless I look for it. I’ve unfollowed all news/media accounts and muted any disturbing words. It would help if you also gave it a try.
I literally subscribed to 41 substack newsletters- after unsubscribing to some recently. Now don’t even get me started about other non-substack newsletters.
I logged in to Instagram twice while looking at someone’s page.