If you don't know about this already, let me blow ya' mind.

I'm going to list out a few problems, and you tell me if you identify with any of them. Are you:

Constantly nodding and smiling when your co-workers discuss current events, when, in reality, you have no idea what they're talking about and hoping that no one asks you a follow-up question?
Overwhelmed and saddened by how depressing the evening news is?
Too busy to sit down and read a newspaper?
Getting your news from Facebook, which has been proven to accidentally run as many fake news stories as real ones?
Ambivalent about the goings-on of the world, but wish you knew just a little more?

Mmhmm. I thought so. There's a solution to this.

theSkimm.

So a little personal background:

I really like staying informed, but I'm not someone who reads the newspaper. I was feeling like a sorry excuse for an adult, because I'm also not a news junkie, nor do I follow political blogs or watch CNN at night. So this service, theSkimm, has really changed things for me.

theSkimm is a newsletter specifically designed for millennial women. It was founded by these two cuties:

Carly and Danielle started their careers working as producers for NBC News and eventually collaborated to solve all of the above problems. They wanted to make news quick, accessible, and fun to read.

It's called "theSkimm" because it's just that: the equivalent of skimming a major newspaper and getting all the highlights.

Some of my favorite things about this publication:

1. It is delivered to my inbox by 7 AM every morning, so no matter how early I'm up, I can read it before I start my day in earnest.
2. It is a pretty unbiased news source. It doesn't lean terribly left or terribly right.
3. It reports on issues I care about: a solid mixture of pop culture, sports, and actual hard-hitting policy news.
4. Their reporting is succinct and simply put. In fact, there are fun pop culture references scattered throughout each piece.
5. If they're reporting on a complicated subject that I'll need a deeper understanding of an issue to grasp, they offer a link to a more in-depth explanation of said subject.

Allow me to walk you through my Skimm from this morning with badly drawn footnotes:

1. Cute and cheeky heading.
2. Early delivery, as promised.

3. They always tell us what they're doing while they were writing the next morning's post. This post, it happens to coincide with their advertiser. But other issues have featured "Skimm'd while marathoning Gilmore Girls" or "over a few bottles of wine." #relatable
4. They always feature a Quote of the Day. It usually doesn't pertain to anything else in the e-mail, but it's something culturally relevant and fun. Like this one. Thanks, Bob Dylan.

Okay, so let's review how they report the news:

5. They cite their sources. Throughout each section, you can click to find out more.
6. They give you an introduction to the topic. On more complicated topics, they'll usually include a link that's titled, "Remind me?" and you can go back and read more about the issue.
7. Provides the most recent update.
8. If you're too busy to even read a few paragraphs, if gives you the highlight in the section called "theSkimm."

This is only one of the four major stories they report on each day. The other stories discussed in today's issue were Philando Castile's murder trial, Facebook's recalibration of how it deems news stories "real" or not, and airstrikes in Aleppo. They also a few other short news blurbs.

I'm just realizing that I failed to mention the VERY best part, which is that IT'S FO' FREE. FREE. NO MONEYS.

Subscribe to theSkimm by clicking that photo below and never be clueless at the water cooler again. Being informed is sexy. So, you know, get informed.