Let me guess. You have dramatically reduced your screen time on your phone. Hooray for you and that is not nothing but now let me ask you this:
Did you carve out a weird exception for podcasts?
You know, because “I’m not looking at the screen!” “It keeps my brain busy while I do mindless work!” “These podcast hosts are the closest things I have to personal friends [my friend R. used to refer to the people in her sitcoms as “my TV friends”]!” “I don’t have time to read the news so at least this way I can keep track of what’s going on!” “I can’t get behind on my New Episodes!” “My house is a dump already, imagine how bad it will get if I can’t listen to podcasts while I clean!”
Hey. I know. I have been there.
Way back in graduate school, I studied time management with the famous Dr. Randy Pausch.
He included an indelible statement in his notes for the course: “Kill your television. How badly do you want tenure or your degree?”
At the time, I was like, Dr. Pausch?!?!? Kill my television? What about my television friends? What about all the housework I get done with the pleasant bleeeeerrrrrr of the television in the background?
But he was right. I did not have time for television. I wanted my degree more than I wanted my TV friends. And my degree still took me twice as long as it was designed to take - if only I had killed my television even earlier!
And now I am making that same mistake all over again, only with podcasts.
Here’s a partial list of the podcasts automatically downloaded to my phone since January 23, 2025, some with multiple episodes. Yes, this is all from a mere seven days:
Deep State Radio
Critics at Large | The New Yorker
The Bob Lefsetz Podcast
Stand Up! with Pete Dominick
The Lawfare Podcast
The Daily Blast
Stay Tuned with Preet
CAFE Insider
Hysteria
What a Day
Past Present Future
The Daily Beast Podcast
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Rational Security
The 404 Media Podcast
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
The Anxious Achiever
Off the Cupp with S.E. Cupp
The Counsel
Minnie Questions with Minnie Driver
Pod Save the World
Keep It!
Gaslit Nation
Feel Better, Live More with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Amicus
The Perception & Action Podcast
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pivot
Seek Treatment with Cat & Pat
StraightioLab
Rebel Spirit
Pod Save America
Magical Overthinkers
Sounds Like A Cult
Main Justice (formerly Prosecuting Donald Trump)
democracy-ish
A Slight Change of Plans
What the Trans!?
Strict Scrutiny
Enlighten: Uplift and Inspire
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
Offline with Jon Favreau
Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air
#SistersInLaw
Lovett or Leave It
Writers Rotation
Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry
Justice by Design
The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs, LCSW
Trumpland with Alex Wagner
Black Voters Matter’s as-yet unnamed podcast
And I bet I am not the only one whose New Episodes looks like this. On a bad day, I listen to podcasts in the morning while making tea and coffee, in the car on the way to drop off my kiddo and on the way back, in the background while I take a shower, during my tea break, during my coffee break, during my lunch break, during my walk around the neighborhood, in the car on the way to pick up my kiddo and on the way back, in the kitchen when I’m cleaning up after dinner, sometimes even IN BED BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP.
Ways to Avoid Despair (7/10)
7. Kill your podcasts
Kk, so I realize science isn’t real or whatever. But when you put your headphones on, or slip those airpods in, you are directly connecting this stream of podcasted words directly into the part of your brain that processes language.
(This is a different part of your brain from the part that listens to music and song lyrics, by the way. More on that in a future post.)
So your brain is very busy listening to all those words while you are doing all that mindless work. Sounds good, maybe? I’m absorbing info, I’m becoming smarter, maybe 1.5x or even 2x faster than I could be?
The bad news:
Listening to disturbing news, and news about the news, and people analyzing and speculating and monologuing about the news, is disturbing. It can absolutely increase the negative impact that all this bad news is having on you. As we discussed yesterday, it’s important not to mash your feet around on all the broken glass, letting the enemy damage you even more than they already have. Time for us to put some shoes on.
Your brain actually needs time without external stimulus to, you know, rest, get bored, let the mind wander, have an idea, figure out how you feel about something, let all your previously acquired information settle into knowledge, remember something that happened when you were a kid, make an unexpected connection between two things, do all the great CBT techniques you’ve been practicing with your therapist, etc. etc. You know. I’m not saying it needs to be quiet in your mind. I’m saying you might feel a lot better if you didn’t pummel yourself with external noise for multiple hours a day.
And let me add an extra point for those of you who (like me) like to listen to podcasts while driving your car. Driving, along with taking a shower, is famous as one of the times/places/activities that is most conducive to creativity. Ask your friends if they have ever figured anything out or had a jaw-droppingly good idea while driving the car. Even Google’s Search Labs AI knows this. So if you are polluting the air of your vehicle with someone else’s voice, talking about someone else’s stuff, you are drowning out that tiny but essential voice of your own creativity. Maybe let’s not do that. At least not all the time. We are gonna need to have our greatest creativity at our full command in order to bob, weave, and innovate our way through the next few years.
So it is your life - I will still love you even if you can’t bring yourself to kill your podcasts. But if you’re curious, I recommend spending a week with no podcasts. Take note of how you feel moodwise and energywise at the end of each day compared to when you are absorbing your max dose of podcasts. Write to me, I wanna hear how it went.
Today’s Way to Cultivate Joy: Sh*t You Can Buy
I’m not nearly as well-resourced as Wirecutter but I’m just as opinionated and I swear more.
Speaking of tea and coffee and tea breaks and coffee breaks, allow me to recommend an annual tradition we celebrate around the New Year in our house. Well, I mean I do.
Every time Pantone releases its beloved Color of the Year, it produces a family of merchandise to celebrate the new color.
This year’s color is Mocha Mousse, 17-1230, a warm brown. It was rather poorly received, and even slagged off as “oh great, the color of the year is dogsh*t” by one wag (and this was before the new administration even came in). I didn’t like it much either.
But I nevertheless indulged in my annual tradition of buying the coffee mug in the Color of the Year. I mean, Santa gave it to me.
And I have to say, now that I see it in the flesh (or in the ceramic I guess), I really do like it. It looks calmer than the other mugs in the cabinet. It says, Genevieve, you do not need your podcast friends, you can just sit here with your quiet little demure mug friend, instead. It helps me.
Now would also be a good time to buy someone you love a mug in the Pride colors.

Raising a large mug of coffee to you, my friends. See you tomorrow with a suggestion for softening the blow of your break-up with your podcasts.
Don’t go it alone,
Genevieve ☕️