61: Managing Information Overload
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Welcome to episode 61 of Permission to be Messy. I'm your host, JoAnn Krall and today I'm going to be talking all about information overload. What causes it? I think many of us know, but you know how it affects us and some tips to manage all that information that's coming into us. I like to give this example because I think we all know that technology has just brought us so much more information. but it is really happened at such a fast pace. And some of us are still in that hybrid mode. But I like to use this example of, you know, back when we just have magazines for our information or, you know, the library. We would cut recipes out of the newspaper, out of magazines, or we would save ideas and maybe cut out those pages and save those for, tips on cleaning or tips on, travel.
And we would clip them or we would even keep the entire magazine knowing that article was in there. So paper used to be far more overwhelming with our clutter. And as we move into, almost full digital, it will be interesting to see at what point we get there, but as the digital age has come along, of course now those recipes are, saved in our bookmarks.
Maybe we've printed some, or they're saved in our email. They're dispersed all over the place. When we have a brain that is just overloaded with information. It's almost like when you walk into a room filled with clutter, you just look at it and it causes stress and anxiety. You don't know where to begin. You don't know what to do. Very much so your brain is doing the same thing. It's just filled with information bits.
And of course this affects our stress or anxiety. our cognitive level, sometimes we just can't even think straight. When we think about all the information that we're storing in our brains. So it's important to get it out of our brains. And actually, I think it's really important to try to minimize what's coming in.
So how can we do that?
When it comes to health, I don't usually like to talk about diets, but you know, it's helpful to think of a information diet as a way to reduce what's coming in. so think about the places where you're consuming information. And sometimes, many of my listeners. have their own businesses and some don't. Doesn't matter this spans across life business,People who work in, salaried positions, we're all pulling in information.
So somebody who works in a business. of somebody else's, you're pulling information from your coworkers, from your managers, your own stuff. and then your home life. If you work solo, you don't have a lot of those external things, but you're, you often gathering ideas, on how to do things or just all the different ways that you have to manage your business. And then again, home stuff. So think about where your bringing information in.
So if you're somebody that works in another company and, you want to look for patterns of certain people who are flooding you with information that you don't need.
Maybe there's that one person who CCing everybody on the email but it isn't relevant to you. You may want to have a conversation with that person, or, maybe you want to be using filters to filter that person out. Unless of course you, you're going to miss something important.
But think about where all the information is coming.
I mean, depending on your age, if you're old enough to remember those little interoffice memos, where. you would have to actually put a a note in and have it sent to somebody in a different department before email that's how things were done. So everybody was really mindful about what information they were sharing and asking for now with email. I. now with email has been around a long time, but, I do think that even in the beginning stages of email, when it was first a thing. there was not as much information flowing because now we have things like slack and teams
So we're constantly available. And that also means that we're constantly available to fill our own minds and to fill other people's minds.
If you're, subscribed to a lot of different email services or newsletters,Are you reading them? Is it kinda like that magazine subscription that you get every month and you really don't take the time to read them.
You have them in a stack ready to read. I think about that. because it seems harmless to just gather all this information, but if you really, really think about it,your mind knows that it's, it's an unfinished loop that you haven't read that article, or, you've got all these emails that, Are sitting in your email inbox to be read or, again, I've talked about downloading, checklists and all of that.
If you can keep everything in one central place that would really help you see that. personally, I use Evernote. There are some, there are other places, other tools that you can use, Evernote and other tools may often have a web clipper. which can be really helpful because not only are you clipping information that you want to save, but at least you can organize it because if saying to yourself, oh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna save any more information that doesn't work for everybody. If you see something that you think might be beneficial to you in the future.
It's easier to just save it. So having some sort of a structure and filing system is really helpful.
Many of us that work for ourselves have a lot of different ideas that we want to explore. having those out in front of us, isn't always helpful. Sometimes it's more helpful to shelf them away. So if you can organize them, into some sort of a file. For me, it's always a to do someday. And I do revisit it.
You want to have some sort of organization structure if you're still going to keep reference things or to do items. Use a productivity app, a project management tool or note app. Create those email filters in your email to make sure that stuff that's coming into you on a daily basis. Isn't stuff that you have to do right away. And that really can shed some light. if you. If you set up a filter for a certain person coming into your inbox and you notice that you never go over and look at that filter and you have a hundred unread messages from that person.
That might give you enough motivation to say, you know what, I'm going to unsubscribe because actually you're doing that person a favor. I always have good intentions. When I sign up for someone's email list. I want to learn everything there is. That they have to offer. And sometimes it's really not to my benefit. What I'll do is I'll save one email, I'll unsubscribe, but I'll have their information on the side so that when I'm ready to dive back into whatever topic it is, whether it's business or personal related. I'll remember them and I'll see them on the side and I'll remember, say, Hey, I want to go back and see what they're doing. instead of just keeping them coming in, because that just can get completely overwhelming and, newsletters are making a huge comeback. I've been doing my own newsletter on LinkedIn. and I'm thinking about doing a private one, but again, I always want to stress to people. Do not subscribe if it's going to be overwhelming and it's going to add to your clutter and that as I talk about that, I also want those of you who do have, businesses or you're putting content out, whether on social media or an email or in a newsletter form to be mindful of about what you're putting out there, keep it to quality over quantity.
Is this going to overwhelm people or you want to make sure that everything you're putting out there is going to be beneficial. The last thing we want to be doing is contributing to the noise that's out there.
So my message today is to treat your brain like you would treat a cluttered room. keep it. Keep it light. Try to get everything out of your brain. and, into some sort of an organization system, even if it is just you doing a brain dump and having lists on paper, it doesn't have to be digital. Try to keep all of your bookmarks organized, if you're somebody that likes to save reels and things on Facebook, are you really looking at them? If you are, you can organize those by topic, or you can put them all into one note system so that you, know where to go back and look at things, . And if this is something that you struggle with. My information is always in the show notes. Feel free to reach out, ask me any questions. You can always book a free strategy session with me.
And as always, I'm wishing you much progress, peace, purpose, and the permission to be messy. Thanks for listening.
