3 Way to Keep Focus Amid ‘Breaking News’

For many professionals in 2025, keeping up with government and industry news worldwide has become a job in itself. Most weeks go like this: First comes breaking news, then comes a scramble to interpret it (“What does this mean for our supply chain?”), then come work meetings about it, then comes fresh breaking news that supersedes the original news. And unless you’re in the communications department, you haven’t gotten to any of your actual work yet.

Not surprisingly, professionals are struggling to keep up with the scramble—and it’s likely negatively impacting their output, says business psychologist James Bywater, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “These types of distractions are bad news for performance,” he says, because they can significantly impair cognitive performance, including memory. The effect is heightened by anxiety, Bywater observes, because when people are anxious, they’re more prone to focus on distractions.

Bywater suggests a psychological trick to maintain work focus: By leaning into engaging, absorbing, and challenging tasks, you can de facto minimize distractions. Simply put, engaged people are not constantly reloading news sites. He advises self-control: Consciously decide to not look at the news, social media, or text messages. “Make the decision to put your phone in a drawer for key chunks of time,” he says. Other recommendations from our experts include:

Ignore the news until after work.

“I read the news online in the evening,” says Craig Rowley, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “That way I can focus on the stories most relevant to me.” During daytime breaks, he scans headlines, marking the stories he’ll read later; he might flag the same story on two to four different sites, including one based in the UK. “The coverage can be really different sometimes,” he points out. Once a week he dives deeply into retail-specific news, from industry rags to press releases, in order to gain insight into shifts in supply chains, pricing, leadership, and trends. 

Stick to high-quality reporting.

Supply-chain expert Seth Steinberg has ceased reading most news on social media, preferring instead to lean on strong reporting. “I want to read an article and use my own critical thinking to arrive at an opinion,” he says. He reads every morning and evening to capture the developments of the day—without getting caught up in hour-to-hour daytime shifts.

Lean on alerts.

“I really monitor trends across the industry through alerts,” says engagement expert Mark Royal, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. He has set up news alerts for the companies and industries relevant to his job. “You want that information pushed to you,” he says. For other news, he tends to read for thirty or so minutes during his lunch break, then catch up on the day’s developments in the evening.

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s career development capabilities from Korn Ferry Advance. 

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