Information Diet and Content Curation
Use AI to design a curated information diet — selecting high-value sources, eliminating content noise, and building a system that keeps you informed without overwhelming your attention.
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The Firehose Problem
🔄 Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, you redesigned your social media relationship — auditing actual usage patterns, creating operating procedures for retained platforms, and replacing passive scrolling with intentional connection. Now let’s address the broader information ecosystem: news, newsletters, podcasts, articles, and the endless stream of “content” competing for your attention.
Information overload isn’t just about having too much to read. It’s a cognitive state where the volume of incoming information exceeds your brain’s capacity to process it — leading to anxiety, decision fatigue, and paradoxically, worse understanding of the topics you’re trying to follow.
The average person encounters 34 gigabytes of information per day. No human brain can process that. The goal isn’t to consume more efficiently — it’s to consume less, better.
Designing Your Information Diet
Help me design a minimalist information diet.
Currently I consume information from:
- News apps/sites: [list them, estimated time/day]
- Newsletters: [approximate count]
- Podcasts: [approximate count, hours/week]
- YouTube/video content: [estimated hours/week]
- Reddit/forums: [estimated hours/week]
- Books: [approximate pace]
My information needs:
- Professional field: [what you need to stay current on]
- Personal interests: [topics you genuinely care about]
- General awareness: [how informed do you need to be about world events?]
Design a curated information diet:
1. For each information need, select the single best source
(quality over quantity)
2. Create a consumption schedule (daily, weekly, monthly)
3. Identify everything I should cut (redundant, low-value, habitual)
4. Total target: maximum [X] hours per week on information consumption
The Minimalist Source Stack
| Category | Quantity | Recommended Approach |
|---|---|---|
| News | 1-2 sources | One broad (AP, Reuters, BBC), one industry-specific |
| Newsletters | 3-5 max | Only ones you’ve read 3+ consecutive issues of |
| Podcasts | 2-3 shows | Listen intentionally (walks, commute), not as background noise |
| Long-form | 1 book/month + 2-3 articles/week | Depth over breadth |
| Social/forums | 0-1 community | One high-value community if any, with time limits |
✅ Quick Check: Why does limiting news to 1-2 sources actually make you better informed? Because consuming 6 sources means reading the same story 6 times with slight variations — which feels like being informed but is actually redundancy. One good source gives you the facts. The second gives you a contrasting perspective. After that, each additional source adds diminishing returns while increasing your cognitive load and anxiety. You’d learn more reading one in-depth analysis than 10 headline summaries.
The Newsletter Cleanse
Help me audit and cleanse my newsletter subscriptions.
Here are my newsletters (or email me a list of all senders
from the last 30 days with "unsubscribe" in the footer):
[List newsletters or describe what you subscribe to]
For each one, apply the "3-Issue Test":
- Did I open and read the last 3 issues? → KEEP
- Did I open 1-2 of the last 3? → EVALUATE (what specific value?)
- Did I open 0 of the last 3? → UNSUBSCRIBE immediately
For KEEP newsletters:
- Best consumption method? (Email, RSS reader, or saved for weekly reading)
- When should I read this? (Morning coffee, lunch, weekend)
Generate unsubscribe instructions for everything marked UNSUBSCRIBE.
The AI Weekly Briefing
Instead of monitoring information constantly, let AI summarize it for you:
Weekly briefing: Summarize the most important developments
in [your field] this week.
My field: [description]
My specific interests within this field: [topics]
My level: [beginner/intermediate/expert]
Provide:
1. The 3-5 most significant developments with brief context
2. One thing that might affect my work directly
3. One contrarian or surprising take I should know about
4. Recommended reading: one article worth my time this week
Keep it under 500 words. I'll read this every [Sunday morning/Monday morning].
Building a Content Curation System
Help me build a personal content curation system.
I want to replace random browsing with intentional consumption.
Create:
1. A "reading list" workflow — when I discover something worth reading,
where do I save it? (Read-later app, bookmarks folder, notes app)
2. A weekly reading session — 1 hour per week dedicated to saved articles
3. A "content sources" document — my approved list of sources,
reviewed quarterly
4. A podcast listening protocol — which shows, which episodes to skip,
listening speed settings
5. A book selection process — how to choose my next book
based on current goals rather than impulse
✅ Quick Check: Why save articles for later instead of reading them immediately? Because in-the-moment reading is usually driven by dopamine (novelty, curiosity, FOMO) rather than genuine value assessment. When you save an article and return to it 3 days later, you can evaluate it with fresh eyes. Many saved articles turn out to be less interesting than they seemed — and the ones that survive the wait are genuinely worth your time. This “cooling off” period is a natural content filter.
The Quarterly Information Review
Help me conduct a quarterly review of my information diet.
Over the past 3 months:
- What did I consistently read/listen to? (These stay)
- What did I stop engaging with? (These go)
- What topics do I know more about? (Confirm sources are working)
- What topics am I still confused about? (Need better sources)
- Am I spending more or less time than my target?
- Has any new source earned a place in my diet?
Update my information diet document with changes.
Key Takeaways
- Information overload degrades understanding and increases anxiety; consuming less from better sources makes you better informed, not less
- Limit news to 1-2 sources (one broad, one industry-specific); the overlap between 6 sources is 80%+ with no added insight
- Apply the 3-Issue Test to newsletters: if you haven’t read the last 3, unsubscribe immediately
- Replace constant monitoring with a weekly AI briefing that summarizes key developments in your field in 2 minutes
- Save articles for later reading to let the “novelty dopamine” fade — articles worth reading will still be worth reading 3 days later
Up Next: You’ll assemble everything into a sustainable digital minimalism maintenance plan — with quarterly reviews, life-event triggers, and strategies for preventing the gradual creep back to digital overload.
Knowledge Check
Complete the quiz above first
Lesson completed!