How to Audit Your Information Diet for 2026

"Information consume equates to attention produced." — Herbert Simon. If you feel scattered, anxious, or uninspired, looking at your screen time isn't enough. You need to look at your sources.

Step 1: The Inventory

Open your email. Go to a folder called "Newsletters" (or searching "unsubscribe"). Write down the last 10 you received.
Now ask: "Did reading this make me smarter, or just more anxious?"

Step 2: Compare Signal vs. Noise

Signal: Dense, factual, actionable, long shelf-life (e.g., Tutorials, Analysis).
Noise: Repetitive, emotional, urgent, short shelf-life (e.g., Breaking News, Twitter Hot Takes).

Step 3: The Great Unsubscribe

Be ruthless. If a newsletter hasn't been opened in 30 days, kill it. If a news site makes you angry, block it. Aim to reduce your inputs by 50%.

Step 4: Automate the Synthesis

You fear missing out (FOMO). That's why you keep the subs. The fix is to decouple "Subscribing" from "Reading."

Keep the subscriptions, but route them to an AI agent (like NewsletterForMe). Let the AI read all 50. Let it tell you if something actually matters. You get the safety net without the noise.

Conclusion

A healthy information diet isn't about starving yourself; it's about eating nutrient-dense food. Swap the "sugar" of social media for the "protein" of books and deep-dive essays.