📱The Content Diet
Consuming what brings you joy
Hey friends!
Welcome to another edition of The Report! I started this newsletter a little over a month ago and I've already learned so much about managing a newsletter, building connections and using my voice. Here's a short summary of what has happened over the last one month:
A huge thank you to all of the people that have subscribed to this newsletter. You are what keeps me going and you are what motivates me to write out a new edition every single week. I love doing what I do and you make me love it even more.
Now, onto this week’s newsletter. In this newsletter, I want to explore how we can be more mindful about the information we consume and how to have a filtering mechanism in place to prevent information overload.
If you’re on the internet, information is available on every single part of the web, and a lot of the times, it’s irrelevant. With the introduction of email subscriptions and filtered browsing, we managed to eliminate some of the noise, but it’s not enough.
Read-it-later apps like Matter, Pocket, Instapaper are great for curating your own little information library, but even then, noise somehow manages to slip through. Here’s what has been working for me over the last few years:
Monitor your content: We often give away our email address without thinking twice. But moving forward, try to curate your inbox and give out your email address to websites, newsletters and people that bring you joy. Set up filters and unsubscribe from things that don’t matter to you anymore. You can use tools like Sanebox for complete control over your mailbox as well.
Time your consumption: Allocate specific times to consume all your content, rather than letting your content consume all your time. Install blockers for social media websites if they are taking up too much of your time and turn off notifications (a game changer for me). Use a read-it-later app to spend your content consuming time more mindfully.
Add more offline content: Consuming content from sources other than the internet can have a great positive impact on your content diet. It reduces the chances of mindless scrolling and falling into a new rabbit hole every day, and improves your focus on what you’re actually consuming as well.
Give up in the middle: If the content you’re consuming isn’t bringing you joy, then give up in the middle. Just because you’re close to finishing a book doesn’t mean you have to if it isn’t adding value to your life. The same goes for TV shows, podcasts, movies and all the other kinds of content you consume.
Consuming content doesn’t have to be all about gaining knowledge and being productive though. Sometimes, you just want to sit down and binge-watch a TV show, and that’s fine too.
I’ve enjoyed writing The Report and I hope you like reading it too! If you have any questions or feedback, respond to this email and let’s chat. I’d love to hear your thoughts. My inbox is always open 💜.
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