For someone who suffers from anxiety like myself, and therefore empathizes well with the perspective in the article (i.e. an emotionally-charged event can have an impact on my productivity):
I think a better approach is to focus on becoming emotionally resilient so that things don't overwhelm so easily, or so it's possible to reset even given an emotional challenge. At least, that has been critical in my life to avoid spirals of self-recrimination or agonizing over things I can't affect or control.
I agree with this, but I also don't think the strategies are mutually exclusive.
Especially if what you want to be productive on is art, it's good to take advantage of the time when you feel most connected to yourself. But I find that connection requires lowering all of my defenses, including to the outside world. So it's still best to do that before I've been beset by the news.
At the same time, being more resilient can help me get other useful stuff done through the rest of the day, including stuff that is sort of adjacent to the art-making process. (For example, I make music and it's hard to find an inspired melody later in the afternoon when my head is aswirl with the chaos of the world, but I can still putter around with sound design and mixing.)
> I agree with this, but I also don't think the strategies are mutually exclusive.
Yes I absolutely agree, and I should have said it. Thank you for making this point.
Emotional resiliency is not just about receiving negative stimuli and recovering from that. It's as much about knowing yourself well, knowing what kinds of situations or stimuli you should try to avoid or minimize, and knowing where and when you can best function to your full potential. So I very much agree with what you're saying.