Battling Information Overload: A Practical Guide for Staying Focused

Let’s be real — more than half of you reading this won’t even read the entire of this post. I get it. We’re all busy, and there’s only so much time in the day. But here’s the question: Are you actually being selective about what you read? Or are you just randomly picking and choosing? Being selective implies there’s some method to your madness. Do you have one? Or are you just coping with information overload by skimming and hoping for the best?

A century ago, information was scarce. People in small towns would eagerly question any stranger passing through, just to get a glimpse of what was happening in the world. Those days are long gone. Now, we have the opposite problem — there’s too much information. Everywhere you look, someone’s telling you they have the solution to your problems, even if they don’t know what your problems are. Magazines, newsletters, and online content bombard you with more than you can ever possibly read, and some of it is so niche that you wonder who’s even interested.

Are You Thrashing?

In IT, we use the term “thrashing” to describe what happens when a computer gets overwhelmed. It’s trying to do too many things at once, so it spends more time juggling tasks than actually completing them. You can thrash, too, when you’re buried under an…