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How 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

Whisper Transcript | Transcript Only Page

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:04.800 | Hi, Cal.
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
00:00:14.600 | of my workday on Twitter, thinking
00:00:16.660 | it helped me stay on top of the news in my industry
00:00:19.360 | and helped me generate story ideas.
00:00:21.920 | But in reality, it was mostly to pass the time
00:00:25.260 | while I was sitting at a desk from 8 to 5.
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
00:00:34.560 | to develop new habits.
00:00:37.920 | So I decided to quit Twitter.
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
00:00:45.640 | I choose to support.
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
00:00:56.840 | among those of us in our industry.
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
00:01:14.080 | and all of your advice.
00:01:16.640 | Well, I appreciate this question.
00:01:18.840 | I actually had this debate with Ezra Klein in one
00:01:23.840 | of the appearances I did on his show.
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
00:01:32.440 | or not to keep up with the news.
00:01:34.880 | And it was a spirited debate, which
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.
00:01:44.360 | I would say a couple of things here.
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.
00:02:00.800 | It really is terrible for mental health,
00:02:02.480 | especially in our current climate.
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
00:02:17.160 | using Twitter to fill the time.
00:02:19.720 | It's a really important observation.
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.
00:02:30.440 | What's the best things 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
00:02:39.400 | things to do, or you're going to be
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.
00:02:49.200 | We've talked about this before.
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.
00:02:58.760 | Schedule what you want to do.
00:03:00.000 | Make the most out of the time when you don't
00:03:01.840 | want to be working.
00:03:02.640 | Time block planning helps you do it.
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
00:03:12.840 | without having to just watch the ill thought
00:03:16.400 | through small tweet character count messages going by
00:03:21.360 | in that feed.
00:03:22.080 | There's just so much that's toxic that happens on Twitter.
00:03:24.680 | It just hits this way of interacting
00:03:27.000 | that presses all the buttons.
00:03:28.360 | Just it's so quick to be annoyed or upset or mean
00:03:32.160 | and pseudo-anonymous.
00:03:33.040 | I mean, the whole thing is a mess.
00:03:34.460 | There has to be a way.
00:03:35.640 | There has to be a way that you can stay up on news
00:03:38.160 | without having to just be there on Twitter.
00:03:41.440 | So maybe there's email newsletters.
00:03:43.160 | There's podcasts.
00:03:44.160 | There's websites.
00:03:45.040 | There's honest-to-God physical newspapers.
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
00:03:52.080 | going on in that world.
00:03:55.080 | Hold the line if you can against getting back on Twitter.
00:03:58.360 | I mean, honestly, if I was a reporter--
00:04:00.320 | this is what I suggested to Ezra--
00:04:01.720 | I would rather hire someone whose job it
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
00:04:12.840 | I need to know about.
00:04:13.720 | And they can call me if they see something.
00:04:15.400 | Because you know what?
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.
00:04:22.400 | So find a way not to be on Twitter,
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,
00:04:32.080 | time-killing.
00:04:32.840 | There's other ways to stay up to date
00:04:34.440 | on the world with a little bit of effort.
00:04:36.160 | I think you can find it.
00:04:37.760 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:41.120 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:44.480 | Get it?