Eight Steps to Thriving on Information Overload

I keep on wanting to update my really "Information Coping Skills" workshop curriculum from almost ten years ago.

At Blogher, I got a chance to finally meet Jack Vinson who writes a blog called Knowledge Jot With Jack. His recent post "Eight Steps to Thriving on Information Overload" caught my eye.

Rather than fussing about the fact of information overload, Ross Dawson suggests that maybe it is something to thrive on, if managed properly. Turns out that he wrote about this issue ten years ago and provides the full text in Eight steps to thriving on information overload

Information Overload - Problem or Opportunity?

[and the points, read the details at his blog]

1. Set information objectives.
2. Select your information sources.
3. Set time aside for reading.
4. Filter aggressively.
5. Be open to useful information.
6. People are your best resource.
7. Develop your reading and note-taking skills.
8. Sleep on it!

(And thanks Jack, for giving your BlogHer bag to take to Cambodia)

Comments

[Craig Roth]

I hadn't seen the list from Ross before - thanks for pointing me to it.

I've posted my own set of tips at http://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com/2006/11/29/personal-attention-management-tips/
that basically divides what you can do into managing the inputs, throttle, processing, outputs, and reflection.

Some points I would add to the list you give: leverage presence technology, use social networking as a filter to find good information, matching channels to the message based on urgency, state your response times upfront, and to prepare yourself for interruptions (bookmarking your work).