This thought’s from Seth Godin:
Your kitchen table
You open the door and the vacuum cleaner salesperson comes in, and dumps a bag of trash in your living room.
Or a neighbor sneaks in the back door and uses a knife to put gouges on the kitchen table.
Or, through the window, someone starts spraying acid all over your bookshelf…
Why are you letting these folks into your house?
Your laptop and your phone work the same way. The reviews and the comments and the breaking news and the texts that you read are all coming directly into the place you live. If they’re not making things better, why let them in?
No need to do it to yourself, no need to let others do it either.
While I believe in being somewhat current with the news, I think taking (or replacing) time- and energy-sucking sites off your “speed dial” pages is helpful. Those pages will still exist if you want to go back to them, but why make it easy?
To that end, I’ve removed some movie review and game review sites off my speed dial and replaced them with some positive Instagrams and the Good News Network. They tend to update only once a day (if that) and every update brings me positive thoughts and encouragement for my day and my creative work.
Nothing wrong with movies and games, but I was checking these pages multiple times a day and getting lost on them. You can’t get that time back.