The world is awash with information: The worldwide web, 24 hour news, multi-media presentations, mega-channel TV, broadcasts, narrowcasts, podcasts, 100-a-day email, 500-page reports… Not to mention good old radio, books and magazines. This can often be too much at times and push the boundaries of mental health. I can talk from personal experience having been a knowledge worker in the IT industry.
With all this information to choose from (and much of it seeming to choose you, whether you want it or not) your working day can become overloaded with way too much information. This overload could lead to high levels of stress and potential to put a strain on your mental health. Do you find yourself considering every single piece of information? Do you worry that you’ll miss something important?
Finding it, sorting it, organizing it, discarding it, evaluating it, reformatting it and not knowing what to do with it. And what time is left for the real work?
Advice: Be choosy about the information you use. Be ruthless about discarding information that chooses you, where its value is unclear. Seek out what you really need to know to do the work in hand. Find confidence in your information skills, and with it you’ll find the time to choose and use information wisely and well.
I couldn’t advocate this strong enough.. If you find yourself doing some form of information work where you’ll need to look at various sources of information such as mentioned in the opening paragraph, you’ll need to find a system that will allow you to decide whether the information you’re looking at is of worth or not very quickly. As a long time photo-reader, I can suggest looking at photo-reading as a tool for deciding the aforementioned in minimal time.
Combine this with Mind Mapping as I discussed here and here, and you’ll be well on your way to knowledge mastery.
Book a consultation session now with me risk free and discover your unlimited potential!