I like it, will steal some. I followed the same strategy and always added relevant content to this doc, then forcing myself to read it every day. It‘s a non-attributed mashup of several sources. because it‘s from my personal notes:

—-
Core Question: Is what I‘m currently doing helpful to my goals?

Get Bored. Get Calm. Enjoy boredness.

Whatever happens on the front page, I’m never involved. It seems like the whole thing would work just as well even if nobody ever read the Times or watched the cable chat shows. It’s a closed system.

Breaking News is most often wrong and later corrected by more breaking news.

But if that’s true on a scale of minutes, why longer? Instead of watching hourly updates, why not read a daily paper? Instead of reading the back and forth of a daily, why not read a weekly review? Instead of a weekly review, why not read a monthly magazine? Instead of a monthly magazine, why not read an annual book?

Following the news isn’t just a waste of time, it’s actively unhealthy. Edward Tufte notes that when he used to read the New York Times in the morning, it scrambled his brain with so many different topics that he couldn’t get any real intellectual work done the rest of the day.

Its obsession with the criminal and the deviant makes us less trusting people. Its obsession with the hurry of the day-to-day makes us less reflective thinkers. Its obsession with surfaces makes us shallow.

I have not followed the news for a long time. My life does not seem to be impoverished for it; indeed, I think it has been greatly enhanced. But I haven’t found many other people who are willing to take the plunge.

News makes our inner opinion volcano boil and that is toxic!

Uncontrolled input prevents rest, relaxation and output. All this massive time that is lost is ultimately YOURS! I am good to myself. I am worth it to myself not to stuff myself with poison!

Bad news is toxic for your body:

By consuming all of this news (which is nearly all bad news), you’re stressing your body out, weakening its ability to fight off infection, and potentially causing digestive and growth problems.

The really bad news is that news consumption is a vicious cycle that’s hard to get out of. Stress weakens your willpower. Without the willpower to put your phone down or turn off your computer, you’re likely to consume more and more news. And so the pattern continues.

“We are training our brains to pay attention to crap.”

The more a person consumes multiple types of media, the fewer brain cells there were in the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the part of the brain responsible for attention span and moral deliberation. You can no longer concentrate on books and longer articles. Your mind gives up after just a few paragraphs without absorbing any of the content. And you begin to suffer from anxiety.

After all, it is also part of freedom of opinion not to have an opinion.

Reading the news doesn’t help you change the world for the better. Ignore it or do something.

You need to make a complete break. The best way to do this is to push through 30 days of no news at all. By the end of those 30 days, you’ll hopefully reach the point where you don’t feel the urge to peek at the headlines.

What do you REALLY want in life?

To be really successful at something, you need to dedicate yourself to it fully. Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, and Beethoven didn’t become greats in their respective fields by scrolling through news feeds every few moments. They simply couldn’t have done, wasting all of that time.
—-