UF Postings Past: Information Overload and How to Cope

The Attention Crisis has been around for ages.  Whether its people dropping by your office, the phone ringing, television commercials, email, auto-updating rss feeds… technology has enabled us to get vast amounts of information, and to create the ability to interrupt ourselves with this information, nevermind other folks interrupting us. 

This posting was originally inspired by Fred Wilson’s article on Attention Crisis. Fred brings attention to a problem that has actually been kicked around for years, from Herbert Simon to Richard Saul Wurman’s ideas about information overload and anxiety, people have recognized and worked to solve this problem for ages. I had a consulting gig once that revolved around solving this problem for hundreds of thousands of users with diverse interests. Companies everywhere are trying to solve this problem internally, which in turn drives things like taxonomy research, enterprise search, knowledge management, business intelligence, and all sorts of other buzzword technologies. Individuals face these same problems every day when they sit down at their computers.

Everyone hits a saturation point where the information they have access to surpasses the information that they can consume and use. I consume about 100 RSS feeds per day, in addition to email from work, email from home life, mailing lists, my independent projects, constant pings from my friend I’m writing a television series for, my girlfriend, friends and coworkers, and all the miscelleny that goes along with being me.  Different people have different tolerance levels for keeping up with information. It took me weeks to work out my system of keeping up with so much information. In the original version of this post, I was still refining my methods, and I’m still trying to refine my system every day.

Why should you care about taking in more information effectively? Quite simply, it’s how you learn and grow. If information is a tool in your business, it’s a survival skill. Understanding how to take in information effectively is also a stepping stone to understanding how to help others take in information more effectively. In today’s Information Society, this could be a ticket to the Next Big Thing ™. Ipods, for example, are a Big Thing because they help users have access to and organize thousands of pieces of multimedia through an amazingly simple and elegant interface.  The Iphone is a big thing because it expands on the same idea- you get also get internet and telephony.

Here’s some recommendations that I use for organizing information:

1) Sort by what you want
Sort information sources you use according to what information you want to gain from it. For example, when I want information that will help me with my career, I go to the “Career Advice” folder. It includes blogs and websites on everything from knowledge management to sales and marketing. I have another folder called “tools”, that includes GTD stuff like Lifehacker, the Download Squad for apps, Make for things to real life tools, and all kinds of things.  I also have one for writing ideas, one for travel ideas, and so on.

2) Refine often
If you have an information source that you are pinging regularly but is not giving you useful information often enough, ditch it. It is not suiting your needs, and it is taking up your time. This will give you more time to focus on what is helping you.  Be ruthless about this; over time you’re going to discover new (and hopefully better) information sources.  You’ll have to have room for them.

3) Prioritize
Some information you see is highly valuable. It should be read right then. That information is usually few and far between. The rest should be bookmarked/clipped/whatever and set aside. You can come back later, when you’ve skimmed everything for what is truly valuable.

4) Purge Mercilessy
Some of what you will mark will not be all that interesting compared to other things you find. When you look at the list of things you have marked to read later, you will skip over the less interesting pieces. If you find yourself skipping over it more than twice, just delete it. Throw it out. It may be interesting, but if you keep skipping it, it is not that interesting.

5) The Leftover Bin
If you really, really want to read something, but just do not have time, throw it into a secondary bin somewhere. Keep a folder that you label ’someday’ in which you put this sort of thing. I personally have a whole filing system for my somedays. My “Writing Inspiration” folder runneth over constantly.  When I’m in the mood for a fun project, for example, I check the “Fun Projects” folder. I find that when I come back to these folders, I sort mercilessly again. Sometimes things that were interesting last week just are not that interesting in the long run.

All of these things boil down to this: applying the Discardia principle to information. Never be afraid to ignore a piece of information that you do not need today. Never be afraid to throw away a piece of information that you realize you will not have time for tomorrow. Do not worry; tomorrow there will be a million new items to replace it, and if all else fails, you can always google it to get it back.

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