To motivate myself to write more, I’ve been reading more. Not just online posts but magazines and books. Looking to subscriptions service and news aggregators, despite my initial hate – Apple News won me over.

It turns out I didn’t need to use it more; I didn’t need to ‘train the algorithm’, I just needed to turn off the news part! You see, I hate viewing or reading the news – it is that simple. It is full of twisted and corrupted stores that are either designed or portrayed in such a way to manipulate your emotions.

There is a way to do this, but it’s hidden away in the settings titled “Restrict Stories in Today”. Not a great label for a toggle that should be much easier to find, but I would presume Apple doesn’t want you to turn it on. Go to Settings > News and toggle this to on.

Now all you will see are channels you have subscribed to in the Today tab. No more depressing politics, no more news you don’t want to see, just what you want.

There are downsides to this, the discovery of new channels can be more difficult, and you might not be kept as upto date with current affairs as you once were. Be a little more mindful of not creating an echo chamber, and you should get on much better. I am now much more open to subscribing to Apple News+, and many of the channels I am now following are News+ channels. So there is a benefit to Apple in the long run – subscription all the things!