The Medium Diet: Conquering Your Thirst for Buzzfeed
Feeding your brain and the cousin of the paleo diet
We’ve all heard of the Paleo diet for losing weight and getting healthy sustainably — why don’t we have an equivalent to combat junk news.
You must feed your mind with reading material, thoughts, and ideas that open you to new possibilities — Oprah (I can’t believe I just quoted Oprah)
Let’s first figure out where the crap is coming from. Do this yourself but I’m going run through my list:
- Email Subscriptions
- The Score Mobile
So just how bad is it. Here is my list on Facebook from my newsfeed:
- 50 things to do in Toronto this Summer
- Where to watch movies outdoors in Toronto this Summer
- Comparing and contrasting the party platforms in the Ontario Election
- Kid’s sports in Canada: All New Stats for Parents
- Google to Buy Skybox Imaging for $500 million
Wow. I’m not a parent. I’m not going to vote (don’t lecture me on this). So basically, I don’t give a sh*t about any of this stuff.
Yet I would have to wade through that every morning — like a minefield filled with black-holes of time-wasting.
Because thats what happens right — you get duped into clicking a link, fall into this hole and 30 minutes later you are on Wikipedia wondering what happened to Enrique Inglesias the last 10 years.
Enter Medium.com — if you are visiting this site from somewhere else, I suggest you get an account — if you are already here and contributing, congrats on winning.
Why its awesome:
Stories Baby
As opposed to the stream of garbage being spewed by a lot of Twitter users (probably half my fault for following them) — Medium encourages its writers to tell stories.
This leads to deeper thinking, a connection with the author and what he/she is trying to get across.
I finish reading most articles with a renewed passion and a NEED to make a change and do something.
Fantastic Writers
I’ve come across some fantastic writers here that have told me some great stories and have given awesome tips on how to remain productive and meet other goals I have.
It’s like a constant boost of energy every time I finish an article. On Medium, there is someone, somewhere talking about and/or dealing with the same struggles you are going through in what you are doing.
Here are some of my favourite:
If you have made it this far — you are my kinda reader and I’m going to give you the answers to strip away those pesky distractions.
Install a Site Blocker on Chrome / Firefox
Use one of either StayFocused or Time Warp. My choice is SF because it gives me a limited number of minutes each day and frankly I’m used to it.
I myself, am limited to 10 minutes per day across Facebook, Twitter and Digg among a few others.
Either way, keeping track of your time on your guilty pleasure sites keeps you honest and will flag how big of a problem you have.
And yea, its a problem.
Remove Those Distracting Apps
For some this will be extremely hard given our FOMO (fear of missing out) but you should really try this.
Facebook, Twitter, Score Mobile and Instagram are all gone from my phone and I find myself looking at it sparingly throughout the day, coming up with more ideas and generally feeling less time pressed on things I am doing.
Give it a try — you can always go back.
Start Following Medium Writers
See that “follow” button at the bottom…yea that one, hit it now.
Its cool, I’ll wait….
Great — now do that for every writer you like on Medium. Slowly, your feed of news will be filled with thoughts on how to be more productive (me), and generally how to live a better life.
So far, the quality of writers on Medium far surpasses any other reading platform I have been on. Good writers love telling stories and enjoy the PROCESS of writing just as much as the end result.
In Summary
You can use any platform you like really; find blogs you like and subscribe to their RSS feeds or by email. It doesn't matter how you go about it but cutting out the junk will lift this weight off your shoulders that you didn’t even know was there.
Medium just makes it easier.
Imran Esmail writes at Escape Your Desk Job where through stories and case studies he shares methods you can use to cut out distractions, implement sustainable habits and ultimately build the life you’ve always wanted.
For more methods and tips on escaping the 9-5, join his free newsletter.
