Consuming Information
24 Jul 2021
There is just so much information out there and so the biggest challenge has been to consume just the right amount of it without getting inundated and overwhlelmed. So, the question I ask myself is "is this piece of content relevant to what I am doing right now?". Many times it's not, so I give it a pass without feeling guilty. If the article is something that will teach me something new or is just a fun piece, I bookmark it and come back to it later.
I have been pruning my information diet over the year and this is what it has come to today...
Daily dip into Twitter, Reddit to scan what is most popular.
I love reading newsletters delivered to my Superhuman "News" inbox. The ones I enjoy are Techmeme, Pointer, Daily Stoic, Engadget, Shawn Blanc, TLDR Dan, NYTimes Daily Briefing, Benedict Evans and Dense Discovery.
I have subscribed to Wired, WSJ, NYTimes and Economist on my iPad and it does feel like an overkill sometimes. I let my mood dictate which of these publications I want to dip into a couple of times a week.
I absolutely avoid daily news (local/country). Most of it is just sensationalised and garbage. If I really want to waste time, I'll open up Google News to see what is going on.
I have removed all news/reading apps from my iPhone. This helps me avoid "snacking". This has been an ongoing experiment over the years.
I love the Reeder app and I have a few RSS feeds that I dip into once a week - AVC and Daring Fireball.
I used to listen to a lot of podcasts (Pocketcasts) but this has slowed down since last year. I need to be moving when I listen to podcasts! My current favorites are On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Indie Hackers and The Stack Overflow Podcast.
Lastly, my weekly reading includes reading and researching watches (a neat little hobby that I have found) on Youtube, Hodinkee, A Blog to Watch, Worn & Wound amongst others.