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“It’s not our fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.”
Yeardley Smith
Information Overload: excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information
Wikipedia
We live in interesting and exciting time. Growth rate of information is staggering and growing each and every day. We have more information available to us than in any time in history.
We can learn anything we want and get any information available to us with a push of a button. It is very convenient. It seems that we should be happy and appreciative that now we don’t have to spend our precious time going to the library and doing research that might take days, weeks or even months. Paradoxically it causes more frustration and disappointment and makes us feel more unhappy and unfulfilled.
Attention span is dropping with each and every day. The more information becomes available the more we need to be selective on which information to process and which to ignore. It causes our attention span go down dramatically.
“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in 2002. “Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things,”
Here are several major causes of information overload:
- More information than we can process
- Value of information decreases
- Doubt of existed information(credibility)
- Constant Craving for More and More Information
- Bombardment of unsolicited information
- Speed of new information increases each and every day
The Paradox of Choice
Resources we have available to us limited in one way or another. There is so much we can do in a day, so many choices we can make. Between all of those choices we must discriminate and limit our choices to something that is very important to us.
Too many choices lead to paralysis by analysis syndrome. The more choices we make, the more it leads us to believe that there is perfect solution somewhere available and if we don’t include this in our decision making, we will missed out on something important.
I am experiencing this issue firsthand. Instead of taking action on information available, I try to do more and more research. At the end, I might totally forget where I started and nothing gets done.
In his book “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”, Malcolm Gladwell describe this very well by stating that if we have to much information available to make a decision, it probably will not be the right one despite all the facts available. Intuitive nudge might be a better solution in many situations.
It is hard to hold multiple pisses of information to make a right decision. When complexity increases, out chance to make a right decision decreases. The solution here is to take action on information that is available and improve it along the way.
Consequences of Information Overload
- Too much information and not enough actions (Input and Output Imbalance)
- Not enough time to do things we know we need to do
- Negative emotions such as anxiety, self-doubt, low self-esteem because we
unable to make a decision - Productivity drops dramatically which leads to poor results
- Issue got transferred into personal, professional and all areas of life
Solution
1. Develop your vision, so all information you process get filtered through your vision
The best way to overcome problem of information overload is to make sure that all information is filtered through your vision, in other words you need to know what you want.
I am guilty around studying a lot of different subjects because it is just interesting to me, because I want to be in the no and informed. It is a good thing, but this way I hardly got anything useful done in terms of results. Yes I becomes smarter and enjoy learn new things, but I realize that I can enjoy and get smarter plus producing outcome all at the same time.
Take time and think what you really want lout of life and only consume the information that will lead you to your outcome in the moment. Got some vision in place, it is better than no vision, you will refine your vision as you move forward.
2. Know your Deep Values
Knowing your deep values will help you to establish priorities when making any decision. Write 5 values and organize it in order of priorities.
For example:
1. God (spirituality)
2. Family
3. Health
4. Integrity
5 .Learning and Growing
You really need to think about your values, it is not something I can show you how to do. The best way I found to determine values is by “looking for patterns”. See if you have any recurring patterns.
For example you don’t like when you see someone who do not take care of themselves physically and it get you irritated because you know that they need exercises and you frustrated that they don’t see it for themselves.
At the same time you know that you need exercises more than you do now. It may tell you that one of your values is HEALTH. You might not have a healthy lifestyle now, but you know that it is very important because it will show up in all other areas.
Health is one of my values. Since childhood I been pretty active and still are and it is make me said when I see people who completely ignore their problems. I do ignore mine too, but I always striving to have a better health in any way that I can.
3. Drop all sources of information that not serving your vision and not compatible with your values
Cut all sources of information that not serving you. Ask yourself if watching a television will get you closer to your goal or away from it? (Assuming that you have goal in a first place)
“Rich people have big libraries, poor people have big TVs.”
-Jim Rohn
If you have no purpose - you have television
4. Develop a system to effectively and efficiently organize and process information
There is so much information available on how Get Things Done, organize information and leverage technology. Again it can be confusing and overwhelming. If you try to learn a new system of organization it might take you a long time to adapt and learn the system. Instead of being productive we learn another system on how to be productive.
The best solution I found is to begin with as simple system as possible. Write your vision, tasks and goals in simple notebook and based on that do you daily task list based on your vision and your goals. You will feel when you need to improve your system, it will come naturally. Do not try to adapt all at the same time. I tried and failed every time.
When I start to do my origination I realized that I need more visual representation of information, because our brain can process visually organized information better then list information. It has to do with how our brain structured. It likes linked information, the same way our brains are wired.
That’s where program: Mind Manager comes into play. It is not free, but you can find lot of free tools available on the internet. Here is one of them: http://www.text2mindmap.com/
5. Develop an action plan that will get you from where you are to where you want to be
Without action nothing is possible. It is a good idea to plan before taking any action.
Most people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.
When you have a long term plan it is easy to divide it to monthly, weekly and daily goals. Then all we need to do is to get busy to make it a reality.
This list by no means complete, my goal was bring this issue with which you probably already familiar with and make you realize that you are not alone and then most people who one way or another striving to improve their lives will be touched by this issue. When we have understanding and strategy to deal with it, it is much easier to deal with it. You are now alone. Let’s get it handled Now.
Let me know what you think :
1. how you deal with information overload
2. what the best solution you found that works for you
3. At what degree it influence your self-fulfillment level
4. Suggestion on important points I might not include in this post
