« How to Deal with Overload | Home | Project Overload »
Information Overload
By admin | August 28, 2008
I wrote yesterday about dealing with the various types of overload Dealing firstly then with information overload. You feel bombarded with emails, messages to look at this website, product launches, videos. Some days you might feel your head is going to explode. I know I do. If you do only a percentage of the things that drop onto your desk or into your email every day, you would never do anything.
The first thing to do is go into your inbox only 3 times a day at most. In the morning scan through and throw out the rubbish. Don’t go into anything in detail,don’t take any actions unless its critical to your success,like your server has gone down or you have a customer to respond to. Then close the emails and start your work. When you go back in the afternoon, you will find it easier to go through again and some of the emails you saved in the morning will be deleted this time. You will have subconciously filtered things through and realised that you don’t need a lot of the things you thought you might need a few hours earlier.
When you return for your third visit, you can post replies or delete some more. I recommend putting other stuff in a “to do later” or “to read later” folder. That gets them out of your inbox and keeps them somewehre safe. You may never return to that folder and delete it at a later time and thats fine, its probably stuff you never needed in the first place!
So there are three things to do on your visits:
- delete
- store for later
- respond immediately if its critical. Otherwise leave your response until your next visit. You know the adage, “act in haste,repent at leisure” Never has there been a truer saying than that when speaking about emails (or texts for that matter)!
Topics: Uncategorized |