How Do You Process All This Information?!
July 22, 2008 by Ryan
I have 28 34 (and counting) blogs that I read through my Google Reader. I follow 100 +600 people on Twitter & Plurk (thanks to ProBlogger). I find more and more friends from childhood, high school, college, etc. on Facebook everyday. How do I process all this information!?
I’ve actually cut down the number of blogs that I read (I had some that would post 5-6 times a day)! My reading of ZenHabits has got me to try and simplify. But at the same time, I just added like 80 people to my Twitter/Plurk/Facebook! One good thing is that the additions are not as demanding as the blogs. Which reminds me! I have like 5-6 books that I want to read!
I guess it comes down to priority. What priority is all of this information for me to get through? How thoroughly do I want to digest each source? It’s pretty easy to “fill up on junk food” with all the social networking. Even some of the blogs are low-nutrition! I know that I should spend more time of the information that has the best return on investment (i.e. books, quality blog posts & family info streams). Being that I aspire to income generating blogging, I also need to invest time into developing contacts and relationships. So, while there is going to be a good deal of personally irrelevant info, I do plan on spending time with my “new” friends.
Anyone else dealing with this? How do you handle it?
This post is part of my Information Overload Series
- How Do You Process All This Information?!
- Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
Comments
8 Responses to “How Do You Process All This Information?!”
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I’m not sure how to handle it. It’s tough. If you come up with a simple answer, be sure to let me know.
Make a list of the things ( blog wise, internet, information accumulation etc.) that have been taking up your time. Cross out only those that you have decided not to participate in during your five day work week. Some people all together just have to give up participating totally (info addicts). Then select from that list the ones you want to keep for the other days. Here’s an example:
Church, religion related save for Sundays. Sports perhaps you can save for Wednesday night and Saturday. Work related and career opportunities are for during the week ( you can even break this out even further ie. AM and PM, Lunch hour etc.).
The point is you will never be able to keep up with it all, but if you designate blocks of time (hours, days etc.), you can feel that you are “managing it”.
It won’t work if you cannot discipline yourself to stay focused on your priorities. Trying to do it all will continue to be frustrating.
Hope that helps
@Vered Thanks for the comment & coming by. That is the coolest feature you have on your blog, being able to display the last post of your commentor’s blogs! If you get back around, you’ll have to tell me how you did that.
@Dave Gotta love that my DAD comes in with some great advice! So is that what you do? (My dad gets more done than anyone I know!) I’m telling you, get that book written!
It’s been overwhelming! I just posted about it as well. I wonder how long all the ‘following’ will last. I am overloading on my feeds as well and can’t sort through them as quickly as I would like.
Hi Ryan. I hear you on the overwhelming volume of feeds & “friends” to track.
I’ve gone in spurts going for days without checking twitter or blogs, then catching up on a “social media” day.
The easiest way for me to handle it is by prioritizing on bloggers and friends that have been supportive and loyal, and on new people that made the effort to comment on my blog or link to one of my articles. Like you were kind enough checkout my blog and tweet about it, so I return the favor by leaving a comment.
After that, I focus on feeds/articles/people I find interesting.
p.s. Vered’s blog uses a popular wordpress plugin called CommentLuv
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
I was just thinking about this today too. I have too many blogs to maintain, too many social media sites to keep up with, and too many blogs to read. I feel like I have ADD when I log on sometimes because I start doing something, like check Twitter, then something catches my eyes, it reminds me I have to do something, and I’m off on another tangent.
I’m thinking of getting a notebook and setting a schedule. Like 1 hour a day to check emails and forums. Then schedule a day to write a post for one or two blogs, depending how inspired I am. Schedule a day or two a week for Facebook and other social networking sites, and so on…
I hope I can stay on schedule and not be so scattered.
Ryan, this is a great question, and one that I know I will be pondering as I’m getting more actively involved with social media and various outlets for meeting new folks and exchanging information. I keep posting things I want to read to my deli.cio.us bookmarks, but then never make it back over to read the things I’d like to. I am keeping blogs I love in Google Reader, but then don’t have time to look at them all. Twitter has come in handy because it feeds the ADD nature of seeing something and checking it out right then.
But it’s also a little addictive when you wish to avoid an unpleasant task as well.
I give up! When you figure this out, please twitter me or email me and let me know how we should avoid information overload. LOL!!!
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