

Ask HN: Dealing with News overload - infooverload

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of news I follow.<p>Tech news, local and global political news, staying current with science in general, and reading everyone's opinion on how to code, live and lead a company is... too much. I like to stay current, not only on topics relevant to work but also on generic topics on life, society and culture. However this is consuming too much of my time every day, and lately I've noticed too that it "trashes" my attention and capacity to focus, by littering my head with so much input. Not checking my usual news sources makes me much more productive for the day, but builds an enormous anxiety to know "what's happening".<p>So my question is: how do you deal with this? Do you just not follow what is not relevant to your current work, and disregard other aspects of what's happening in the world? Postpone it to the weekend? Do you know of a news source that is more "compact"?
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andyn
I used to be very frustrated by this. I have a shortlist of about four sites
(gmail, reddit, HN, google reader) that I keep reloading obsessively. Some
times I would catch myself closing reddit, just to open it again. Entire days
could be wasted in this fashion.

Recently I've stopped doing this as much, I half suspect it's a mixture of
exercising more at the moment, going out in the sun and the fact that I don't
think there's much new material out there. Maybe I've simply become bored of
it.

So much of what we read on these social sites and on our RSS feeds are just
people vying for our attention. It's like being in a room with people all
shouting at you sometimes. Newspapers want your eyeballs, bloggers want you to
read their opinion. CLICK MY ADS!

You're right, it really does trash your attention. Now that I've eased my use
of it I find myself working away and then being surprised (and a bit
disappointed!) that it's going home time!

Look at the top entry here on this site at the moment - it's about a guy
responding to some other guy about some Apple stuff or other. Do I feel more
enriched by reading this or getting on with some work? Does what he said have
any bearing on my existence? Do you really need to read articles like "10
jQuery widgets that will change your life!"?. Do you _really_ need to read the
200th article on the oil spill? Is reading it going to magically clean it up?

So in response to your actual question I would suggest working out some sort
of routine - only spend an hour or so during lunchtime and after work so you
have set times you should be working. Just have a quick skim over the first
page of these sites to see what's going on. Longer articles can be saved for
later and read when you really don't have anything better to do. It'll still
be there.

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imp
There is definitely value in keeping up with news, especially since technology
moves so fast.

However, that said, 95% of what you'll read in a given day is trash. Cut out
as much as you possibly can. Tim Ferris took this to the extreme, and you can
read about it in the Four Hour Work Week. He said that he never reads any
news, ever. When there's a presidential election, he emails his friends and
asks them who they're going to vote for and why, and then makes a decision
based on that.

IMHO, cut out all global political news. All of it is outside of your control
and doesn't affect your life. Glance at a newspaper on the sidewalk
occasionally and you'll get the gist of what's going on in the world. Be more
judicious with other news sources also. You'll still know what's going on in
technology if you only read HN every other day instead of every day.

If you have lots of free time, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with
reading a lot. It's only a problem if you have other goals that aren't being
achieved because you're spending too much time reading. You can either be
reading the news, or making the news.

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scorpioxy
I don't deal with it. I learned a long time ago that I cannot be on top of
everything and that it's ok if you're not.

You know how they say that after Hilbert mathematics became too large for any
one person to learn? Well, this situation reflects that. There's simply too
much information out there. Are you sure you want to stay current with all of
that?

There's a time when you need to stop reading about doing stuff and start to
actually do stuff.

------
hotmind
Try this: Whenever you feel overwhelmed, take a deep breath, push your chair
away from your desk, and call somebody you care about.

Alternately, go and read some timeless wisdom like the Bible.

You'll then realize almost everything is transitory and of no real
consequence.

