How to Overcome Information Overload

Thanks to Coronavirus, we've had extra time on our hands lately. Maybe you've been productive and used your extra time as an opportunity to upskill and educate yourself. If you've got a big, ambitious dream or goal, there will be significant challenges involved in achieving it. You'll have to learn new things if you want to move forward and make progress towards your dream. So educating yourself is crucial to your success, but this is also where some problems arise that sabotage your success.

The first problem is that we'll start learning about a topic and then constantly consume information about it without necessarily implementing what we learn.

We now live in a binge culture, and not just for entertainment. We binge podcasts, Youtube videos, articles, webinars, and online courses. We've become information junkies because information is so easily accessible through the internet. It's really easy to fall into the trap of constantly consuming information thinking it's moving you forward, especially if you love learning and you're passionate and interested in the topic.

The second problem is that you get information overload. You can easily get overwhelmed by the volume of information you think you have to learn about a topic before you feel qualified or ready to take action on it. There's some imposter syndrome underlying this. You think you have to be an expert otherwise you'll get criticised or ridiculed if you make a mistake.

The third problem is we get distracted by going off on tangents and going down rabbit holes which may not be relevant and waste time.

The result of not implementing what we learn, of information overload, and of getting distracted, is that we stay stuck. We don't make any progress. If you want to get unstuck and move forward, you need to filter information more effectively so you don't get bogged down or dragged off track by it.

A useful distinction I've learnt for information is Just-In-Time vs. Just-In-Case.

Just-in-case information has no immediate application. We learn it “just in case” we need it later on. You might be interested in it and find it compelling in some way, but it has no immediate value to you. It's like you're hoarding information the way a squirrel gathers nuts for the winter, although the winter may never come where you need that information.

Not all just-in-case information is bad. One example of just-in-case information that’s useful is learning how to do CPR.

A lot of what we’re taught in school falls under a “just in case” scenario. Ten years later, when we’re adults, we might need a second language, we might need algebra, we might need advanced physics… but then again we might not. This knowledge is risky because we forget it quickly and a lot of it we never even use in the first place.

We also need “just in time” knowledge: information we can use to solve current problems and achieve current goals as they come up.

You want information that will be useful into the future. But you also want to use it right now.

Because if you don’t use what you learn almost immediately, you’re going to forget it very quickly.

In the late 1800s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, found we forget information we’re exposed to at a predictable rate if we don't reinforce it. Basically, within a year, we’ve completely forgotten it. It’s as if we never learnt it in the first place.

It's like if you learn Japanese for 5 years at school, but you never interact with any Japanese people to speak the language and reinforce what you've learned, you're going to forget it. So was it an effective use of your time to learn it in the first place if haven't used it and you've forgotten it? Probably not.

I think these kind of learning mistakes are a tragedy because time is our most precious resource. If we’re wasting it on things that have no application or value, it’s probably not the best use of our time.

One really effective way I've found to apply this model is to use it as a filter for email to reduce mental clutter and burden. I remember a few years ago I was signed up to email lists of about a dozen different marketing experts. And so I was constantly bombarded with emails for their articles and blog posts and webinars. I was being pulled in a hundred different directions. I got overwhelmed and confused. I wasted a lot of time, and I didn't make any progress. I went through my email subscriptions and asked if each one was just-in-time or just-in-case, and then I unsubscribed from all the ones that were just-in-case because they weren’t providing any immediate value for me. It reduced my mental burden significantly and freed up a lot of attention that I was able to then put to better use.

As I mentioned, there's such an abundance of information available now that we spend too much time learning and not enough time implementing what we learn. One way I see that play out a lot is that we subconsciously use learning as a way of procrastinating, as an avoidance tactic to circumvent our fear of taking action. We deceive ourselves into thinking that reading a book or watching a video or working through an online course is taking action and advancing our career.

Stockpiling information doesn't work unless you work the information. You can read and consume more and more information but you're no better off than you were a year ago if you don't implement it. Consume, but don't consume to the point where it paralyses you from taking action. Knowledge is no good without application.

Bias yourself towards learning just-in-time knowledge, things that will have a more-or-less immediate application. Once you start implementing and seeing results, you'll be encouraged to keep going.