Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the new corner office. The podcast where we share

strategies for thriving in the new world of work, where the location and hours are more flexible

than in the past. Today's tip is to put a 10 minute limit on your consumption of news about

COVID-19 or anything that might make you panicky. It's easy to get sucked into negative news.

This is true for the current pandemic and will be true in the future for various calamities that

will strike humanity. But wallowing and upsetting news doesn't do anything good for your health,

for your community, or for your productivity. So the wisest course is to learn to keep these things

in chat. This is particularly true when you're working from home and there is nothing external

to limit your news consumption. Wherever you get your news, the last month has provided a steady

stream of disconcerting headlines. Has social distancing or sheltering in place flatten the curve

in your region? Can you get the coronavirus through a cardboard Amazon box? When will things be

back to normal? Or a new normal? Whatever that happens to be? The questions are endless,

and answers it seems are in shorter supply. And so it's easy to read one article after another

or to get absorbed in watching the news. When you're working remotely, the prospect of a boss

or a colleague walking by your desk and noticing what's on your screen doesn't curb your impulse to

hop over to CNN every five minutes and make no mistake. Anyone in the content business has a

vested interest in hooking you for as long as possible. Happy news doesn't keep people clicking

nor does normalcy. So you need to regulate your own consumption of news for the sake of your

productivity and your mental health. I think the best way to do this is to exit the 24 hours new cycle

if you don't have a good professional reason for being in it and to limit your consumption of

anything that might provoke anxiety to 10 minutes a day. You should set this panic time if you

want to call it that at a moment when you are most able to deal with it. Probably not before bed

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