How often do you find yourself being overloaded with information?
On a daily basis we’re constantly bombarded with information, much of which we don’t need and don’t want.
We currently have to deal with TV, radio, advertising, social networking, podcasts, text messaging, RSS feeds, mobile phones, websites and email just to name a few.
At no other time in history have we had so much information pushed upon us day after day and many of us simply cannot deal with it effectively.
Let me suggest a few ideas which may help you deal with all this information.
Limited Time and Attention
With our inbuilt desire as humans to acquire knowledge through Lifelong Learning and all this information being available there’s a problem.
The problem is that we have limited time and attention and cannot cope with this information overload. That’s why I recommend that if your business allows it you should try to Ditch the Hard Sell because people just aren’t interested any more.
With so many companies competing for peoples attention they’re being sold to constantly and they’re learning to filter out information they’re not interested in.
That brings us to what we need to do ourselves, create an information diet and learn how to filter.
Information Diet and Filtering
The best way to cope with information overload is to create an information diet. Some people go as far as never listening to or watching the news.
Their philosophy being that if anything really worth knowing happens in the world they’ll find out about it anyway. I think there is some truth in this.
With the increase in On Demand information services like TV and Podcasts for example we can now consume only the information we want, when we want it.
This is a form of Just in Time Learning and is something we can and should use in our information diets, only learning what we need, when we need it.
Learning to filter out emails (not mine of course) or at least only check emails once a day at the most is a good way to reduce distractions too. The same goes for social networking and even turming off mobile phones if your business allows it.
Implementing an information diet requires a change in your business mindset and in some cases a lot of discipline to break thos old habits.
Many of us are forming crazy habits and checking emails every few minutes sometimes. It’s completely unnecessary but I even find myself doing it sometimes.
Utilise Your Down Time
A different approach to dealing with information overload is not just to reduce our information consumption to fit our available time, but to utilise our down time more effectively.
What I mean by this is the time we spend in cars, on trains, in queues and out cycling, running or walking.
This time isn’t necessarily being wasted, but with the help of an MP3 player and some form of information like Podcasts or iTunes U we can utilise some of this down time and learn something useful at the same time.
It’s because of this information diet idea that I recently created my Quick Tip blog posts, for when people simply don’t have time to read a full article like this one. So far, they’re being well received.
I hope you enjoyed reading this and if your available time allows, please feel free to leave a quick comment.
