People are spending a lot more time on news recently — mostly about Coronavirus. 

We are all scared, and frustrated. It is quite evident when I talk to clients in my coaching practice and friends in my social circle. 

The 24 hours news cycle tends to take over people’s lives, especially in the times of crisis. 

What is the cost of this behavior to ourselves? 

Our engagement in the world suffers. Our engagement in our jobs, families, communities reduces and we are gripped with something that we feel powerless about. Typically, people also feel empty, and anxious. 

In this short article, I want to give you a simple strategy that is potent in reducing the time spent on news. It helped a client of mine get over 5 hours of more work done on average per day. I knew this is a powerful strategy (as I have used it myself), but I was amazed with the results. So, I thought I will share it widely. 

To start with, if you are happy with the balance of consumption of information in your life, you can stop reading now. You are in the lucky minority of the people who are happy with their news consumption. 

If the news cycle has taken over your life cycle, then read on for a simple strategy to reduce its grip on your life. 

Three observations

(1) One thing to realize is that useful news is rarely exciting. If you want to read news for entertainment, it is your choice. But if you are reading it for usefulness and being informed, the excitement level of news is going to be low (most of the time). That is the fact of life: most of the time, there is nothing to report. 

Even in the case of Coronavirus (which is more rapidly changing than most other things we have seen in our lives), the projections of what is going to happen in the next 24 hours are not very different from what actually happens in the next 24 hours. So, the results are not so gripping all the time (once you, e.g., realize that the growth rate is exponential). I attended a (online) Town Hall meeting about the current state of Coronavirus situation in Bay Area (panelists were Stanford doctors, infectitious disease specialists and Santa Clara public health officers), and I learned how the news cycle can tell you hard numbers and that can create more scare as it can hard to interpret the numbers. 

In the case of Coronavirus, there was of course extremely unexpected news towards the beginning, but now, a lot of things are predictable (and what is unpredictable can be learned in a few minutes a day from the level of the general public). 

(2) Second: “news” is mostly a business nowadays, and it needs to be made exciting in order to deliver an amount that can be watched round the clock, and still you feel there is more to be heard. It is an art of story-telling. It is not news. 

(3) Third: Your will to change your news consumption will go a long way. That desire to not let news overrun your life. 

At some point, you become aware that you are falling in the trap of constant news consumption because it is designed to be that way. Once you realize it, you can decide to consume news for a few minutes a day, and then adjust your life accordingly (if need be) for the next 24 hour, unless something really unexpected happens. Be honest about what can change things so your next 24 hours are going to be different. 

The question and strategy

Ask yourself this question: is what I am reading going to be relevant in 3 months? Will the additional information I get from this news will change my life 3 months down the road? 

Think long term! Think in term of if anything will change as a result of reading the news.

Once you decide you want to read only relevant news, have a specific time of the day when you read the news. Spend a few minutes to a few hours, whatever amount of time you want to spend consuming the news. Get to a point where you have read enough that you can survive for the next 24 hours without reading more of the news. 

Then, block the news site (leechblock on computer), block the apps (digital well-being on android, or screen time on iOS) and follow through on your commitment to yourself. 

Don’t just commit, take action (of blocking your access). Don’t just pray. Pray and move your feet (as an African proverb wisely says). 

The simple trick is to read the news ONE time a day, not in bits and pieces throughout the day. It also makes you aware of how much time you are spending reading news. You most likely would be surprised. 

I have benefitted a lot from this simple strategy, and so have a few people I have talked to. I hope you find it useful too.