Nine Rules of Maintaining Your Informational Hygeine

I have been a heavy news reader for many years. You may probably know this feeling when you set a Google news filter to past hour and hit refresh button many times. I thought this extent of awareness gave me a sort of unique insight or competitive advantage over other less "informationally skilled" people.

At times at night I kept thinking of complex geopolitical challenges and how they can unbundle. You know, this may get especially painful when you have substantial liquid investment positions which may fluctuate with occurrence of particular events. (Events I thought I was in a better position to predict based on my level of awareness and understanding of inner mechanics of societal processes).

As it proves, knowledge of breaking news does not make you a better professional and investor. Quite the opposite. It skews your judgement, makes you dependent on the views and comments of other people and, ultimately, makes you an information zombie.

So I have tried not reading news at all. It has turned out to be quite uneasy, very similar to quitting an addictive habit as I understand addictive habits. The withdrawal syndrome lasted for several weeks with obsessive (at times) desire to plunge myself back into the information gutter. Little by little this has alleviated with unprecedented (in my terms) feeling of calmness and sanity.

These are my rules of dealing with information you may find useful.

1. I do not use newsfeed platforms. At all. If I read an article on Bloomberg I find relevant on a particular subject, I do not allow the website to drop me to the main page with the assortment of breaking news trying to claw me in and engage emotionally.

2. No Google news and other aggregator searches on toxic subjects like politics (foreign policy, wars, elections etc). At all. This engages you from the first minute of reading.

3. Local and professional news searches are perfectly fine. Based on my experience, this content is seldom emotionally driving.

4. No TV news programs at all! If somebody watches a news block, I would normally ask him/her to switch the channel or I leave the room until the news block is finished.

5. No blogs with "analytical" comments relating to politics. These are especially dangerous for your sanity, as they create unparalleled engagement and presence effect through comments, feeling that the blogger is a guy like you, graphics etc.

6. No informationally toxic forums. You ignite instantly when you have conversations on toxic subjects.

7. If an author of any article tries to emotionally engage me with pictures of suffering people, appeals to national pride etc. I close the article immediately.

8. If a taxi driver listens to a news block, I ask him to switch the channel.

9. If I am feeling happy just because of anything I have read online, it is extremely likely that this will be counterbalanced with a butthurt of equal magnitude very soon.

This rules have helped me to stay out of the emotionally destructive pieces of information for quite a long time.

Informational hygiene appears to be of paramount importance these days.

Hope this will be helpful.