back to indexHow Do I Overcome FOMO as a journalist without Using Twitter?
Chapters
0:0 Cal's Intro
1:9 Final Question for Cal
1:20 Cal talks about his debate with Ezra Klein
1:47 Cal applauds listener for quitting Twitter
2:10 Cal mentions an aside
2:37 Cal talks about Time-Blocking
3:15 Cal talks about how to stay up on the news
00:00:05.360 |
My name is Teresa, and I work as a journalist and editor 00:00:08.800 |
for a niche industry publication in the Midwest. 00:00:11.960 |
Before the pandemic, I would spend up to two hours 00:00:16.660 |
it helped me stay on top of the news in my industry 00:00:21.920 |
But in reality, it was mostly to pass the time 00:00:29.240 |
After reading your books and listening to your podcasts, 00:00:31.920 |
I decided to use my work from home opportunity 00:00:39.880 |
Now I only use Facebook to keep informed of my daughter's 00:00:42.880 |
school announcements and my favorite local businesses 00:00:47.640 |
The problem is, now that I'm back to the office, 00:00:51.360 |
I feel like I'm behind my colleagues who are still 00:00:53.720 |
on Twitter and getting story ideas from the chatter 00:00:59.440 |
My question is, how do I overcome the fear of missing out 00:01:03.520 |
as a journalist and still stay up to date on news 00:01:07.440 |
in my industry without using Twitter and social media? 00:01:11.360 |
Thanks, Cal, and I really appreciate your podcast 00:01:18.840 |
I actually had this debate with Ezra Klein in one 00:01:25.680 |
I remember arguing with him about the necessity of him 00:01:30.120 |
when he was the editor of Vox actually being on Twitter 00:01:36.240 |
is to say, if you're actually in a job where you want to keep up 00:01:40.240 |
with what's going on, it's not an obvious issue. 00:01:45.840 |
First of all, I do applaud you for quitting Twitter. 00:01:48.920 |
I think Twitter is basically like a reverse anxiety drug. 00:01:53.120 |
So instead of taking Paxil to feel like you have less anxiety, 00:01:57.320 |
you're taking anti-Paxil to make your anxiety really go up. 00:02:04.520 |
So let's start with that as probably being good 00:02:06.480 |
and see if we can figure out how to go forward without it. 00:02:09.160 |
I also want to mention, however, as an aside, 00:02:13.080 |
this observation you had that pre-pandemic you were really 00:02:22.280 |
And it's why I really recommend time block planning, 00:02:24.640 |
especially if you're going to be working in an office where 00:02:27.120 |
you are making a plan for what you want to do with your time. 00:02:32.440 |
If you're time block planning, you're not going to kill time. 00:02:35.400 |
You either are going to find more or additional productive 00:02:41.160 |
able to put large intentional breaks into your day. 00:02:44.400 |
And you could use these breaks to make progress 00:02:46.960 |
on other projects or to learn about other things. 00:02:50.520 |
You can do it in a way that your employer won't be upset. 00:02:53.440 |
So I really don't like the idea of killing time informally. 00:03:04.160 |
All right, let's get back to trying to stay up on the news. 00:03:07.200 |
I have to imagine in whatever industry it is that you cover, 00:03:10.400 |
there is a way to stay up on what matters in the news 00:03:16.400 |
through small tweet character count messages going by 00:03:22.080 |
There's just so much that's toxic that happens on Twitter. 00:03:28.360 |
Just it's so quick to be annoyed or upset or mean 00:03:35.640 |
There has to be a way that you can stay up on news 00:03:46.960 |
Depending what the medium is, find other ways 00:03:50.000 |
that you can ritualize to expose yourself to what's 00:03:55.080 |
Hold the line if you can against getting back on Twitter. 00:04:03.720 |
was three times a day to go into a Twitter account we set up 00:04:07.400 |
for them with a clear list of the type of things 00:04:10.080 |
I care about, what qualifies as breaking news 00:04:15.880 |
They're going to find something once a month. 00:04:17.360 |
And once a month is not worth spending three hours a day 00:04:19.720 |
lost in that morass of anxiety-producing nonsense. 00:04:25.160 |
especially if you know that you're prone to falling down 00:04:27.960 |
that rabbit hole, especially if you know you're 00:04:29.960 |
prone to start using that as just anxiety-producing,