With the U.S. elections just a handful of days away, it’s too easy to get caught up in all things political. You might opt for a quick check on your favorite news site and then realize you spent an hour looking through the most recent poll results or watching town hall meetings. For some people, it may be hard to focus between now and November 5th, and once the elections are over, you may still find yourself distracted by the results.

Learning how to balance your personal and work responsibilities with your civic duties can help ensure you have time to commit to all the important areas of your life. Here are a few strategies you can try.

Prioritize tasks

If you know you will struggle to focus as election day approaches, knock out as many important tasks as you can now. Frontload your plans for the next week so that you can complete necessary but more mindless busywork on November 5th while you watch the election results roll in.

Practice mindfulness

When your mind starts to spiral with thoughts about the election, force yourself to return to the present moment and your current responsibilities. Try a few different mindfulness practices to ground yourself and calm your thoughts.

5-4-3-2-1

This method engages each of your senses. Ideally, you would find a calm place and close your eyes, but you can complete the practice anywhere that’s practical. Just think of:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can feel
• 3 sounds you can hear
• 2 scents
• 1 taste

Box breathing

Also known as four square breathing, this method forces you to focus on your breathing and calms your nervous system. To practice box breathing, it helps to find a quiet place and close your eyes if possible. Slowly count to four as you inhale, filling your lungs as deeply as possible. Hold your breath as you count to four again. Slowly exhale, steadily releasing the air as you count to four, then hold your breath for another four counts. Repeat this practice as many times as needed.

Body scan

Find a comfortable position, close your body, and focus your attention on how your body feels. Begin with your head and work slowly down to your toes, focusing on one body part at a time. Think about how your clothes feel against your body, if you have any tingling or itching, which muscles feel tight, and any other sensations you can identify.

Set boundaries around your conversations

Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth, chief medical officer of the Jed Foundation, a mental health nonprofit, suggests making a plan for tricky political conversations. Before you engage in a conversation—whether in-person or online—consider whether you have the time and bandwidth to talk politics. If your plate is full or you don’t have the energy, shift the subject to something else.

If you are in the right headspace and have time for some friendly debate, approach the conversation understanding you will learn what someone else believes but probably won’t be able to change their mind. Putting all of this into practice will keep you from finding yourself awake at 2 am, battling it out in Facebook comments with someone from a differing political party.

Stay informed efficiently

Two decisions can help you streamline how you keep up with the news: decide where your news comes from and how often you allow yourself to be updated.

Select reliable sources

Choose a few trustworthy news outlets known for balanced reporting. Look for non-partisan organizations that provide fact checking and an objective view of what they’re reporting. The Interactive Media Bias Chart rates news sources for reliability and bias and evaluates more than 1,000 websites, podcasts, news channels, and other sources of information.

Set time limits

Schedule specific times during the day to catch up on news. Because politics is everywhere right now, this may mean that you have to unfollow certain accounts on social media and only visit their pages when you’re scheduled for a news update. You can always follow them again later, but this will help your focus during election season.  

Unplug

One study found that the average smartphone user receives an average of 80 notifications a day, but some people receive up to 200 notifications on some days. Another study found that the average American spends more than 1,300 hours on social media in a year. Your smartphone + social media are designed to draw you in and keep your attention.

There are a few different ways you can limit your access to apps and websites that pull you in with the latest political news and discussions. If you have the self-control not to override your settings, set screen time limits for specific apps or websites. Other options are tools like RescueTime, Brick, or the Stay Focused app.

Schedule time for civic duty

When you’re creating your schedule, allocate time to civic duty activities. This communicates to your brain that you’re doing your part, and you won’t end up sacrificing time that you were supposed to be working.

Some activities you might schedule include:

• researching candidates and ballot proposals you’ll be asked to vote on
• volunteering for the political campaign of a candidate you support
• sending postcards encouraging people to vote
• attending political rallies
• attending town hall meetings or community forums to voice your opinions
• voting

Focus on your individual purpose and goals

Every vote matters, but it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that everything else you do doesn’t have an impact. As you build your schedule and to-do list, include time for your work and family responsibilities as well as activities where you can contribute to areas that matter to you.

Think about the circle of control—

The only things you can directly control are the things within your immediate circle—your thoughts, words, attitude, daily choices, etc. You can build habits around these areas that align with your overall purpose in life and move you closer to your short-term and long-term goals.

The issues and causes that matter to you fall within your circle of influence. You can’t force a politician to pass a certain bill or make a decision about which organizations receive funding, but you can allocate time and other resources to support those issues. Schedule time to volunteer with an organization you care about or to call your state representatives to lobby for new legislation.

Use productivity tools

Having trouble staying focused or managing your workload during election season (or any other time) isn’t a character flaw. The average person’s mind wanders 47% of the time according to a 2010 Harvard study. Instead of beating yourself up because you stopped working to check Twitter or missed an important item on yesterday’s to-do list, try incorporating productivity tools into your daily routine to keep yourself on track.

Here’s a roundup of some of our favorites—

To manage your schedule

• Google Calendar is the first choice for many people when it comes to managing their calendar. Honestly, the trick to using it successfully is to use it consistently. Automatically add new events as you schedule them so you don’t find yourself late for a meeting because you never wrote it down. If you want to try time blocking to help boost your focus and productivity, Google Calendar is a beautiful way to implement this strategy.

• Fantastical is a calendar app known for its intuitive interface and features that make it a hit for both personal and professional use. It can sync across all of your Apple devices and integrates with Todoist. What makes it different (and a little shinier) than other calendar apps is that it can understand natural language. This means that you could type Remind me to call my state rep to voice my support about the new bill and it will automatically create a reminder in your calendar. It also integrates with weather apps, which is a helpful feature when you’re planning events based on the weather, like when you want to canvass for your favorite candidate. The downside? Using it requires a monthly subscription and several features are hidden behind premium paywalls.

To manage your to-do list

• TickTick is a task management and to-do list app that can be used to virtually record your to-dos, set reminders about upcoming tasks and deadlines, create a calendar view of your tasks, and share all of the information with family or work colleagues.

• Google Keep is an ideal solution for any Google stan. It’s a note-taking and task management tool where you can create to-do lists that are color-coded and labeled. It allows you to set time-based or location-based reminders for specific tasks– and there’s just something widely gratifying about checking off an item and seeing it fall to the bottom of your list.

To stay focused on work

• Forest is an app available through the Apple AppStore and Google Play for a one-time purchase of $3.99. The premise is simple (and good for the environment). When you need to focus for a period of time, you open the app to choose your tree, set your focused time, and even tag your session.

• RescueTime is an automated time-tracking software that provides detailed reports on exactly where your time is going. You can schedule focus sessions and block the websites and apps (like news sites and social networks) that keep you from focusing.

To simplify your news access

• Feedly’s News Reader allows you to select topics that you want news updates from. Feedly’s AI research assistant finds, prioritizes, and summarizes articles, tweets, blog posts, and news stories from any sources you select and delivers the condensed version to your Feedly homepage. This is especially helpful for people who might want updates from specific industries unaccompanied by political posts or election news.

• Pocket helps you save and organize web content so you can return to read/listen/watch when you have the time to do so. Once you save content, you can access it even when you’re not online. It syncs with social media so you can save content from there as well, and offers a built-in text-to-speech feature that can read articles out loud when you’re driving or otherwise prevented from looking at a screen.

Take care of yourself

This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but according to research published by the American Psychological Association, following political news can have a negative impact on your mental health and well-being. During election season, this impact can be magnified. Managing your stress allows you to stay focused and minimizes the disruption that elections have on your life. Make sure you’re meeting all your basic needs and put in a little extra effort to take care of your mental health by:

• getting adequate sleep each night
• eating a balanced and nutritious diet
• moving your body every day through a variety of activities
• filling your social battery by spending time with people you love
• spending time in nature as much as possible
• engaging in activities that bring you joy

You’re not alone

Four years ago, nearly half of American workers said that the 2020 election impacted their ability to do their jobs. It doesn’t matter who you’re voting for—election season is full of stress and turmoil. You can’t control who wins, but you can control how you respond to the anxiety we all feel during this time of year. Schedule time to take care of yourself and support the causes that matter most to you—you’ll feel the impact of your actions immediately.