Low Information Diet
Again we start with Tim Ferriss’ affirmation that you don’t need to know everything about everything. I used to be a news junkie. I have opinions about everything and can usually argue my case when I want to about things that are going on in the world. However I don’t follow the news any more.
For about two and a half years now I have not watched the news but it all seeps into me anyway. This happens through the internet, what people talk about and walking past newsagents’ windows and passing a quick glance onto the front pages and that is generally enough.
I subscribe through RSS to a few newspapers but not the news pages. I subscribe to the Guardian for things that interest me and find out about things that are happening now through Twitter and other social media outlets. If I feel there is something that I am particularly interested in then I will specifically look it up.
The television stays off unless I absolutely want to watch something and I spend a lot of time on the net looking through stuff I like and producing content in the areas where I am active.
Has this low information diet affected me? In a negative way, not really. I have saved a load of time that I used to spend watching news programmes, listening to bulletins and reading papers. There has been one amazing result though. I no longer walk around in a heightened state of anxiety. Because I focus on what I want to focus on and do what I feel I need or want to do, I am not worried by the lies and scandals that populate the mainstream media. Bomb threats, terrorist alerts, traffic problems, even the hell that people go through when a little bit of snow lands on their driveway passes me by.
If something is important to me someone will tell me about it and then I can choose to worry about it or not. However I am still totally informed of what I feel I need to be informed of.
The question today therefore is how much do you think you would miss if you went on a low information diet? How much time could you save and how do you think your life would be affected?
Related Reading
1) Mike’s Life
Originally posted 2010-02-23 16:54:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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It’s a real problem, especially if you work online all day as some of us do. I just looked up at the top of my screen and I have 12 tabs open as well as Twitter, and there are 36 posts in my reader.
All madness. I’m going for a beer.
I have twelve too!!! As for my reader I have well over 1000 unread ones. However that is stuff i choose to look at and has nothing to do with “The News” Imagine if I had that too!!
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i agree. I have Tim’sbook too. I used to buy 2-3. Sunday newspapers and at least 2 weeklys. Gave up a while back as the news wasn’t even news most of the time but what journalists felt met peoples needs
Also agree strongly that 99% of the time it doesn’t make a difference and as Covey says nearly always outside your ‘circle of infouence’. Even now as I type this in the airport around me people are scanning newspapers at 5:30 in the morning. They would be better off reading poetry or listening to some uplifting music (or reading your blog)
Good post Graham. Keep up the good work.
I use Google Reader these days just to follow what I want to follow. Stuff filters in of course and really a few days ago I should have avoided the transfer window in the Uk because Liverpool took up a lot of my time.
Not bought a paper for a long, long time.