Updates to Content Consumption and Journaling

In which I discuss some of the problems with last week’s self improvement plan, and make some adjustments.

Last weekend, I vowed to start writing a journal entry every time I consumed content. It’s only been a week, but I feel like I’ve already started to notice what is and isn’t working, and can already make some adjustments.

The Good

This approach has made me more mindful of the content I’m consuming. Every time I sit down in front of the TV, or look at a link I could click on, I’m thinking “Do I really want to have to write a journal entry about this?”

I also feel like it has sparked my creativity and given my brain more to chew on in general. Even once I close my journal, I find myself coming back to some of the more interesting thoughts later on. Once or twice I’ve even come back and written more about the topic in my journal.

Finally, it’s given me an outlet for some of the frustration that comes along with consuming certain types of content (e.g. political content). Actually putting my thoughts and emotions down on paper helps me process them constructively, whereas if I don’t write about them, I tend to have those thoughts spinning around disorganized in my head all day, causing a background hum of anxiety.

The Bad

It turns out that just capturing your thoughts and reflecting a little bit in between each post in a constant stream of content still doesn’t really qualify as quality solitude time. I can feel my anxiety levels rising (albeit, probably more slowly) as I go through post after post, especially in a longer session. I think part of the problem is that ratio of thinking time to reading time is too low, and part of the problem is that it’s broken up into little chunks rather than a larger, more concentrated spans of time for your brain to process.

I’m also finding that not every post needs reflection. A couple of the blogs I follow have single sentence posts between their normal-length ones, and I don’t usually have much to say about those. And sometimes a given post doesn’t really spark any new ideas in my head. In those cases, the reflection basically just becomes a summary of the post, which frankly, might not be worth the time it takes to write.¹

The Ugly

My first journal entry, the one I wrote after listening to Chapters 4 & 5 in “Digital Minimalism”, was natural to write. I wrote about just the things that stood out to me. But as I made the process of journaling a formal requirement for myself, I started becoming more of a perfectionist about it. I was pressuring myself to comment on every point made in a blog post, or capture every single one of the tiny thoughts that came up while I was in the middle of reading. Basically I was treating it more like note-taking than reflection. I even noticed a tiny bit of anxiety building around it – what if I forget to write something down and then happen to need it later and can’t remember it?

To help relieve some of this pressure and anxiety, I need to keep in mind what the goal of this exercise is. I’m not trying to have comprehensive notes, I just want to facilitate being more reflective about my content consumption. I don’t have to capture every tiny thought. I’ll probably never come back and ever re-read any of these notes anyways.² I just want to force myself to think.

I also started noticing a second source anxiety developing: tension between my desire to read every single post in my feed and the desired to properly reflect on every post after the fact. I have curated what is, in my opinion, a reasonable number of blogs to follow, and, for the past few months, I’ve been reading pretty much every post they put out. But now that I also have to write reflection on each of those posts, the process of keeping up with these blogs is eating up twice as much of my life. (And I’m still finding even more interesting blogs to follow!)

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to read and reflect on all of it without spending all of my free time on it. But I definitely have FOMO about skipping even a single blog post. What if that’s the one that happens to offer a completely life-changing perspective?³ But something has to give. I either need to follow less blogs, scale back a bit on the writing requirements, or accept that I’m not going to be able read every post for everyone I follow.

The Updated Rules

After a bit of reflection, I’ve created new rules for myself with regards to content consumption and journaling about it:

1. Content consumption time is 7:00 - 8:30 AM.
   • If I sleep through the window, then I miss it for the day (and that’s okay).
   • During this time, I can read blog posts, watch videos, and listen to podcasts.
   • I can either journal as I go, or write one big journal entry towards the end.
   • I don’t have to write about every piece of content individually, but I should at least write about one thing I consumed during the session.
   • This is also a good time to work on blog posts, especially if it’s a slow day for content. But blog post writing is not necessarily limited to this time.
2. The only content that can be consumed outside this time is full length books (either fiction or non-fiction) or TV with my husband.
   • This content should still be journaled about.
3. I will not read a blog post that is more than 48 hours old. It will get removed from my feed. For podcasts, I will not listen to anything more than a week old.

Rule number 1 should help quarantine the content consumption, and give me larger blocks of solitude in the rest of my day. It also explicitly give me permission to not write about every little thing, hopefully easing some of my anxiety about trying to capture every thought.

Rule number 2 is just about being realistic. Books are a different type of content than posts and podcasts, and they don’t seem to lead to the same pitfalls. On the TV exception, my husband and I have a standing date to watch some TV together on Fridays (and often watch it during mealtimes on other days as well), and we frequently have really interesting conversations about it afterwards. Could we pick a better choice for quality time together? Probably. But I’m not trying to change his habits, and I don’t think his current TV habits are negotiable right now.

Rule number 3 is giving myself not just permission, but an obligation to miss blog posts and podcasts. I should prioritize the content that catches my eye, and leave behind all the rest. No more bulk processing of content from the whole week on a Saturday⁴. Just let it go and realize that there will be plenty more to take it’s place.