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Monday, 8/23/21: Talking about consuming news and recommendations from my Mom

Happy Monday!

It’s a new week, which means it’s time for your next Monday motivation newsletter. Read on below for some steps to a happier Monday, a short story and a roundup of positive thoughts to get your week started.

Three Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three prompts to inspire gratitude and simple intention setting. Take a moment and jot down answers to these three questions. To give an example, I share my answers below.  

Step 1: What are three things I appreciated from the weekend? 

Step 2: What is one thing I can be excited about today?

Step 3: What is my intention for this week? 

GRATITUDE: From my weekend, I’m thankful that my mom was in town visiting, our long walks together and for sunny weather. 

TODAY: I purchased a new planner to use starting in September and it just arrived! I’m excited to set it up today.

INTENTION: My intention this week is to focus on how I’m consuming the news (more on this below!).   

Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Meaningful Musings: Consuming The News When Everything Feels Heavy

With the situation unfolding in Afghanistan, the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, and the continual uncertainty around COVID-19 variants, it’s impossible to turn on the news and NOT experience some sort of overwhelm, anxiousness or helplessness. 

After writing last week about the connection between attention and happiness, I worried that this idea I had been so excited about now felt out-of-touch. 

Does choosing what to pay attention to mean ignoring heavy things? No, that doesn’t feel right… After all, exposure to the heavy, hard things reported on by the news helps put things in perspective, make us more empathetic, and provide the opportunity to learn more about things we care about. But on the other hand, the near-constant access to information can be overwhelming. 

I was emailing with a family member about last week’s newsletter, and she eloquently put into words what she’s trying to navigate. As she wrote: “I’m trying to find the balance of not being callous and ignoring big things, but not letting big things steal my attention when I want to use it for something productive, concrete.” 

I think finding this balance is something a lot of us are trying to do. So, maybe the natural follow up to explore after last week’s focus on consciously choosing what to pay attention to is a reminder that when it comes to hard things, we 1) should pay attention to them and 2) can think about the options we have for how we go about paying attention to them.

By focusing on the how, maybe we can strike the balance between staying informed while also not completely derailing our emotional state. 

I spent time last week scouring websites and articles for tips on different ways one could approach consuming the news and the heavy topics that come with it. Personally, I’m excited to try a few of these out this week and I’m sharing this morning in case something in the below resonates with you, too. And if you have any tips or tricks of your own for consuming news, I’d love to hear them! 

Tips for Consuming News When Everything Feels Heavy:

  1. Think About Your News Routine
  2. Wait to Read a Story in Full
  3. Experiment with Different Kinds of Media
  4. Make Positive Connections a Priority

Think about your news routine. Let me know if you can relate to this: many times, I approach consuming news by just cycling through a series of websites or social media feeds. I don’t have a conscious decision about what I end up clicking on, instead, once the sequence starts, I go into autopilot-mode. However, as media scholar and educator Jennifer Rauch writes, “if you consciously craft your news diet instead of just clicking on links that present themselves to you then the information that you get is going to be more enjoyable and credible and less anxiety-inducing.”

We don’t need to ignore the news, but we also don’t need to read it 24/7. An example of a manageable news routine could include reading a news roundup or watching a national news program in the morning or at night (depending on your preferences). During these daily interactions, you don’t worry about getting too in the weeds about any of the stories you hear or read about, but instead, you keep a “reference list” of headlines and topics that you’d like to dig into deeper.  

Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan all of the time, but I feel like with a news routine like this, I’d be less likely to be derailed when a social post or website article pops up unexpectedly. Sometimes a breaking news update will be so urgent that I’ll need to stop what I’m doing and shift attention, but other times, I might decide to just add the topic to my “reference list” and look into it later, when I’m not in the middle of something else. 

Wait to read a story in full. Speaking of breaking news, when you compare the quality of news, breaking news updates are almost always going to be much lower quality than the reporting that’s possible once an event has occurred and journalists have had time to process it.

I recently read about an example of a news routine with a focus on waiting to read stories in full in Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism. Newport suggests prioritizing slowness and quality to remain informed about current events and big ideas, without sacrificing your time and emotional state. 

For an example of how to do this, he suggests that one could look through a paper newspaper each morning during breakfast to bring themselves up-to-speed on the major stories and read “a more interesting mix of stories than what you would curate for yourself online.” Then, once a week (like a Saturday morning), one could “check in carefully selected groups of online news items and columnists, booking the articles you want to dive deeper into, before heading to a local coffee shop with your tablet to rad through this week’s worth of deeper articles and commentary.”

For finding these articles to read in full, one website I really like is called AllSides.com. The site covers the top stories of the moment, but for each story it neutrally links to three articles: one from a source associated with the political left, one from the right and one from the center. 

Of course, news routines and how we go about reading a story in full are going to look a bit different for all of us, but I’m intrigued with the idea of dedicating time to go deeper on the big stories of the week. I could see how this approach would make me more informed about current events, and do so in a way that’s manageable and less stressful. 

Experiment with different forms of media. Maybe as part of your news routine, you consider experimenting with different forms of media, especially those that don’t let you click around and get down rabbit holes.

Personally, I’ve really been enjoying listening to the news because it helps keep me informed without the opportunity to mindlessly scroll, browse and click. A reader recently told me about the daily NPR podcast called “Up First”, and I’ve been loving listening to it in the morning as I get ready for the day. Plus, with the episodes only being around 12 minutes, it also acts as a built-in timer! I challenge myself to be done getting ready by the time the episode ends. 

Lastly, make positive connections a priority. This piece of advice comes from this article. I loved how the article suggested to make positive connections a priority when consuming heavy news by asking yourself, “what you can do about the news—within the next day. Practice ‘active’ reading by keeping notes about ideas for how you can help.” As mentioned in the beginning, consuming news about heavy topics can often lead to feelings of fearfulness, anxiety or sadness. But the next time I have one of these reactions, I’m going to challenge myself to think about what aspect of the news triggered this feeling. By focusing on this, maybe I can recognize a specific cause I want to donate time or money too, a subject I want to learn more about, or an action I want to take in my own life.

Taking action by doing something, almost anything, is always a helpful tool for moving through those big emotions. Even if it’s the smallest of steps, something is always better than nothing. 

On My Mom’s Monday Radar

Fun twist today! My mom was in town this weekend and I asked her to write this section for me. If you aren’t ready to jump into your Monday to-do list right away, here is a roundup of a few fun, positive things on my mom’s radar – enjoy!

That’s all for today! I hope you found something in today’s newsletter that sparked motivation, made you smile or inspired a positive Monday thought. Don’t underestimate the power of starting small… a fulfilling week starts with just one fulfilling day. You’ve got this! 

Let’s make it a great Monday!
Megan

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