InTheWeeds

Relevance and Overload

Today as the work was continuing it became clear that information overload was creeping in. There is always so much to see and learn. There is always so much information to be absorbed to make decisions, to offer solutions and just to know.

The hard part of all that information is determining what is relevant. You can be diverted from the focus you started with and need to complete so easily. Not just from email and the internet, but from those who drop by the cubicle or office or when you drop by someone else's. Focus.

What is relevant to what you need to do today? That is why I live with a list. I am still learning how to best take advantage of the task list in Outlook. Its also why I have been keeping telephone logs and meeting notes by day for over ten years now. My feeble brain cannot keep up with all the information. In fact, I dont want to keep up with all of it.

I did a study of emails once in a company and fully 1/3 of them had nothing to do with the person's job who got them. The second third was nice to have information but did not really affect the outcome of their work and the last third was relevant and were needed to accomplish the tasks at hand. That probably holds true to you as well, and this is NOT considering spam in your email inbox!

Just work with what you need for today. Leave the rest out, or throw it away. Tomorrow will get here soon enough with a new load of information needed to do your work and lots of junk that may divert you.

Sometimes those diversions seem like fun, but as the day winds down, you end up stressed out because you are behind on what today required.

Set your list, know whats relevant to accomplish that list and keep focused. The day will fly by and you will be happy with what you have accomplished.

LivingTheDream

posted by livingthedream @ 7:26 PM