How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Conor Dougherty, who covers economics from San Francisco, discussed the tech he’s using.

What tech tools do you rely on most to do your reporting?

This isn’t very remarkable or unexpected, but I spend a lot of time on news apps. Throughout the day I cycle through The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, East Bay Times, three of California’s Bees (Sacramento, Fresno, Modesto) and, of course, The New York Times.

I also read and listen to a lot of books, so I spend a lot of time on the Audible app. In the case of really important books that I’m using for research, I’ll buy the print book and shift between reading it in print and listening on my phone. (I have a monthly subscription to Audible and a lot of unused credits, so it feels as if my audiobooks are free even though they’re anything but.)

That’s a lot of news.

Yes, I’ve packed my phone with news so that I use it less.

Wait, what?

Yeah, so, there’s a catch. The catch is that I have zero social media on my phone. Like a lot of people, I’ve been trying to look at my phone less and to have a better work/life balance. In the past I tried some of those phone monitoring apps but didn’t find them helpful. Instead I hit on what you might call a design solution, which is to curate my phone so that it’s mostly a work tool.