How to deal with information overload
I was a hapless victim of information overload.
I wasn’t allowed on the net when I was growing up, and the first time I actually had a proper, up-to-date computer was when I came to Perth to study. It was also the first time I had the internet all to myself. Being lonely and out of place in a foreign land, the net was my first and last line of refuge, especially when everyone I was close to here returned overseas for the school holidays, and I was stuck here all alone. The joys of going to an international school and yet being Perth-based.
It was then that I was introduced to blogging and the wonders of the big wide net. Brand new ways of connecting to strangers and reaching into places all over the world were being open to me. I was finding many blogs of kindred spirits, as well as websites that allowed me to share my interests and develop my passions.
And that was also the year that the massive tsunami struck. Overnight, the tragedy had spurted the growth of blogging, where form met function and new media found its place in the brand new world.
By that time, the sheer amount of time I spent on the net trying to process torrents of information was already getting to me. In the end, the inevitable happened. I suffered internet burnout.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried not to let that happen again, and have been much more selective with the information I process. This following is how I’ve learnt to deal with information overload:
1. Skim to get an idea of what’s relevant, then read what you need in detail. There is a lot of information out there on the net, and there is no way any normal human being could process it all completely. That’s why learning to skim read has become an important skill on the net. I skim read by scanning the page in reading order for keywords, and then letting my brain do the work of putting the information together. Of course, I do miss a lot of important things, but skim reading helps me evaluate what’s important, and therefore can be saved for future detailed reading.
2. Make good use of information filters. These include sites like Google News and Metablogs like Boing Boing or Digg or the various blog portals out there that use the wisdom of the crowd to determine what’s interesting and useful and thus worthy to be shared. Of course the wisdom of the crowd is not always reliable, but it’s a good place to start, rather than trawling through the big wide web on your own.
3. Use your feed readers. I love my Google Reader. Everytime I come across an interesting or relevant blog on the net that I would like to follow, I immediately subscribe to it in my feed reader. That saves me the hassle of visiting those many many sites one by one, because I get the information from them sent straight to me. Plus, in Journalism school, I had weekly quizzes on the news and current events, and subscribing to the feeds of the various news sites around saved me so much time in reading newspapers and finding individual articles on those news sites. It gave me a massive heads up in class. I owe that lot of my grades to Google Reader and Bloglines (before I switched to Google Reader).
4. Use your bookmarks too. For those sites that don’t have RSS feeds, bookmarking them in your browser (ctrl+d) is the way to go to remember them for future reference. Of course, if you’re an avid bookmarker, it’s a good idea to sort out your bookmarks regularly so you don’t get information overload when you check your bookmark list too!
5. And then prioritise the information you consume every day. Google Reader might send you all the information you’re interested in constantly. MS Outlook and Google Talk might notify you the moment someone e-mails you. TweetDeck might go “ding” every time someone you follow updates. But it is up to you whether you’d read all that information the moment it gets updated. I hope you don’t because that’s another recipe for burnout. Set aside time every day to read the news and other heavier stuff. Maybe read the updates relevant to your job when you get to the computer at work. Possibly first thing in the morning when you get your cup of coffee and sidle to the computer. Then check e-mails only two to three times a day, instead of every time something arrives in your inbox. Then possibly catch up on your light reading (i.e. Cracked.com or your webcomics) at the end of the day when your brain is too dead to process anything heavier. That way you don’t get distracted by the constant stream of information, and will be a lot more productive.
6. Then don’t forget to unplug and take a proper break. Get off the internet. Turn off the computer. Go for a walk. Play with your dogs or guinea pigs. Go to the beach. Relax and unwind. Your mind will thank you for it, and you’ll be refreshed the next time you return to face the massive sea of information in the big wide web.
***
I’m guilty of not following step 5 sometimes, but it’s still a good guideline for how to deal with the sheer amount of information that comes my way every day. I love my net and I love soaking up all that information, but if I don’t follow the steps above, my mind will be too shot to even process and soak up anything properly.
That list is my way of coping, and I hope you found it useful. Feel free to share your own methods of coping with information overload in the comments section!
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