Obsessively Curate Your Information Diet
Easy as A.B.C.
#115
September 23, 2022
Obsessively Curate Your Information Diet
Most people use the internet & social media to keep up with pop culture, news, & to keep up with friends.
Step back. Critically look at who you are following online. How are you spending your time? Much like the saying "you become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with" ... the same holds true online. If you are spending your online time scrolling through meaningless pics, silly videos, & online porn ... you are wasting your brain.
Used properly, Twitter can be a better education than college. You can learn more from a $100 online class at Coursera than from a $10,000 university class. The right Slack group can be better than a Masters Degree.
Never Ending Now
Avoid the "never-ending now". This is the practice of consuming only content created in the last 24 hours. You become a hamster on a wheel consuming an "endless cycle of ephemeral content". You can almost feel brain cells dying.
Stop Scrolling is one of my favorite twitter follows. This bot sends occasional tweets reminding me to stop scrolling.
Upgrade
How can you upgrade your information diet? I came across this from David Perell.
Short-form - only follow those people that add value (unfollow celebrities; beware of doom-scrolling through your "friends" timelines); block idiots
Medium-form - less news; find good writers that publish consistently good work; always be curating this list
Long-form - Read books; read long essays from well-known authors
The Capture Habit
This practice has been a big positive change for me. Figure out a way that works for you to capture what you are ingesting.
I write a weekly email to my data industry friends (my "day job" is in the data industry).
This was born as a result of me constantly reading about my industry, but retaining very little. Forcing myself to read and then write a summary ... and then (this is the key) publish for public consumption … has made a big difference. Not only has it made comprehension of the article a must, but by sending the email to my professional peers, it has made me really think about what I am writing.
In practice, this is me curating sources for articles to read about the data industry. This curation mostly happens with Google Alerts (great tool), Twitter, and other email lists to which I’ve subscribed. I am always on the lookout for new writers, podcasters, or information sources. I read, and, if interesting, I will take short notes in Evernote and/or send the link & snippets to my email. I try to find 3-5 articles per week that are interesting plus 1-2 podcasts. After much practice, I can set aside a couple hours, review all my accumulated notes and links, & knock out a weekly email.
If I can execute on this … write a short summary of those articles & podcasts … and hit send on an email (as I have done every Friday for two years), I have done good work.
