Hi, Cal. My name is Teresa, and I work as a journalist and editor for a niche industry publication in the Midwest. Before the pandemic, I would spend up to two hours of my workday on Twitter, thinking it helped me stay on top of the news in my industry and helped me generate story ideas.

But in reality, it was mostly to pass the time while I was sitting at a desk from 8 to 5. After reading your books and listening to your podcasts, I decided to use my work from home opportunity to develop new habits. So I decided to quit Twitter. Now I only use Facebook to keep informed of my daughter's school announcements and my favorite local businesses I choose to support.

The problem is, now that I'm back to the office, I feel like I'm behind my colleagues who are still on Twitter and getting story ideas from the chatter among those of us in our industry. My question is, how do I overcome the fear of missing out as a journalist and still stay up to date on news in my industry without using Twitter and social media?

Thanks, Cal, and I really appreciate your podcast and all of your advice. Well, I appreciate this question. I actually had this debate with Ezra Klein in one of the appearances I did on his show. I remember arguing with him about the necessity of him when he was the editor of Vox actually being on Twitter or not to keep up with the news.

And it was a spirited debate, which is to say, if you're actually in a job where you want to keep up with what's going on, it's not an obvious issue. I would say a couple of things here. First of all, I do applaud you for quitting Twitter. I think Twitter is basically like a reverse anxiety drug.

So instead of taking Paxil to feel like you have less anxiety, you're taking anti-Paxil to make your anxiety really go up. It really is terrible for mental health, especially in our current climate. So let's start with that as probably being good and see if we can figure out how to go forward without it.

I also want to mention, however, as an aside, this observation you had that pre-pandemic you were really using Twitter to fill the time. It's a really important observation. And it's why I really recommend time block planning, especially if you're going to be working in an office where you are making a plan for what you want to do with your time.

What's the best things to do with your time? If you're time block planning, you're not going to kill time. You either are going to find more or additional productive things to do, or you're going to be able to put large intentional breaks into your day. And you could use these breaks to make progress on other projects or to learn about other things.

We've talked about this before. You can do it in a way that your employer won't be upset. So I really don't like the idea of killing time informally. Schedule what you want to do. Make the most out of the time when you don't want to be working. Time block planning helps you do it.

All right, let's get back to trying to stay up on the news. I have to imagine in whatever industry it is that you cover, there is a way to stay up on what matters in the news without having to just watch the ill thought through small tweet character count messages going by in that feed.

There's just so much that's toxic that happens on Twitter. It just hits this way of interacting that presses all the buttons. Just it's so quick to be annoyed or upset or mean and pseudo-anonymous. I mean, the whole thing is a mess. There has to be a way. There has to be a way that you can stay up on news without having to just be there on Twitter.

So maybe there's email newsletters. There's podcasts. There's websites. There's honest-to-God physical newspapers. Depending what the medium is, find other ways that you can ritualize to expose yourself to what's going on in that world. Hold the line if you can against getting back on Twitter. I mean, honestly, if I was a reporter-- this is what I suggested to Ezra-- I would rather hire someone whose job it was three times a day to go into a Twitter account we set up for them with a clear list of the type of things I care about, what qualifies as breaking news I need to know about.

And they can call me if they see something. Because you know what? They're going to find something once a month. And once a month is not worth spending three hours a day lost in that morass of anxiety-producing nonsense. So find a way not to be on Twitter, especially if you know that you're prone to falling down that rabbit hole, especially if you know you're prone to start using that as just anxiety-producing, time-killing.

There's other ways to stay up to date on the world with a little bit of effort. I think you can find it. Get it?