Ok, so I am sitting here having a lazy sunday morning, drinking coffee and looking through Google Reader, watching some tweets go by, reading some blog posts, and all the other online activities we web junkies do to maintain our high, and I am realizing my brain hurts. I sat down much earlier with the intention of writing a post, not knowing what in the world I wanted to post about, but feeling the need to, and a couple of hours later, I find that I have hopped randomly around the internet but done nothing much else to advance my goal of a post. Then it hit me that this is what I always do. There is too much coming at me. So I shut it all down and hopped over here to the blog.
I guess this seed was planted when I read a nice article by Ryan Graves about cutting down on Twitter usage to increase productivity, but the seed sprouted leaves a little later when I caught myself in Reader and Gmail ‘starring’ items to read later. When exactly, I wondered to myself, will later be? Judging by the amount of starred items in both places, probably never. My brain continued it’s mutiny, realizing that there are projects both work-related and personal that get caught up in this paralysis of information, and never advance, or take way too long to accomplish. This very blog is a victim…I am looking at so much stuff, I don’t know where to turn, I can’t even step away half the time.
I love information, and I love learning new things, but I am feeling more and more like not enough butter on toast, spread way too thin. I am gaining little bits about a lot, but no authority over any one subject. I am not going to pledge to dump all my twitter followers or take any other drastic action, at least not right away. I just need to step back, take a deep breath occasionally and remember this feeling, and develop a more critical eye to my time spent, it’s value to me, if any, and what I can do to manage it all in a better, more profitable way for myself.
Do you have similar issues? What have you done to overcome, or at least manage, it for yourself? Please do let me know.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
It's quite easy to get into the situation you describe. I'm there everyday both on Twitter and Facebook and not even counting blogs that I follow.
I've paired down from previous attempts to follow dozens of blogs and hundreds of users. It was too much.
Easier is to follow only a handful of blogs, and for the rest of the stuff, set up Google Alerts to find topics you are interested in. Gives you much less to worry about.
As for Twitter, the key is to follow less than follow you, and follow those that share things you wouldn't see otherwise, or that you really love to chat about. Turn down the noise.
Good luck no matter what you choose to do.
Greg-
Thanks for the mention. I've found huge productivity gains in using this method. Best of luck managing your personal info overload.
Cheers,
Ryan
Thanks Todd, that is some good advice there, especially the part about Twitter.
No problem, thanks for coming by. Your post really got me thinking, and I guess that is what all of this is all about, right?
I couldn't agree more!
Greg-
Thanks for the mention. I've found huge productivity gains in using this method. Best of luck managing your personal info overload.
Cheers,
Ryan
Thanks Todd, that is some good advice there, especially the part about Twitter.
No problem, thanks for coming by. Your post really got me thinking, and I guess that is what all of this is all about, right?
I couldn't agree more!