What with the contentious election, the migrant crisis, the potential of war with Russia, looming terror threats, our crashing economy, our fragile power grid, and frequent heated demonstrations about Gaza and Israel, it's difficult to focus your prepping energy. A lot of folks have said they currently feel incredibly helpless because they don't know what to do. Today, we'll talk about what to do.

It's overwhelming.

Our present situation is nothing if not overwhelming. Threats are coming at us from all different directions. How can we focus on just one without missing an important indicator?

It's easy to get sucked into the cycle of fear, but that is paralyzing.

You may need to limit your access to news to get beyond it. I'm certainly not saying to completely ignore it – just to carefully select your sources and not scroll on newsfeeds and X all day long. We need information, but I'm not sure we need constant, every-second-of-our-lives information. I think that makes things seem even worse than they are in an already bad situation.

Find some trusted sources and limit yourself to those. Also, you may want to put a time limit on this.

There's a name for spending hours reading negative news. It's called "doom-scrolling," and Merriam-Webster defines it as "spending excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc." If you're already in the habit of doing that, it can be difficult to escape the cycle, but it's essential if you want to be effective. Focus more on spending those hours being productive rather than immersing yourself in bad news.

As a news junkie myself, and also while I'm recovering from surgery, it can be extra tough not to get sucked in. I finally had to make a rule for myself to check three places for news in the morning and then three later in the afternoon. I spend the rest of my time working on other projects, reading books, learning skills and languages, and enjoying some shows on Amazon Prime.