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Balancing Life's Demands

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Surviving Information Overload

Clear, Practical Tips to Help You Stay on Top of What You Need to Know
Kevin A. Miller | Outcomes, May/Jun 2006

Are you overloaded by information? See if you recognize any of these signs in your life:

• You feel life has become just too complicated.
• You know your cell phone, PDA or laptop can do a whole lot more than you're using them for, but you don't have time to read the manuals or help programs.
• You attended a great seminar and took notes, but as soon as you got back, the crazy pace picked up again, and you haven't done anything with the notes yet.
• Someone mentions a book you haven't read or a movie you haven't seen. You nod as if you have.
• You find it nearly impossible to concentrate on a project, because of phone calls, email, voice mail and interruptions.
• You go to vote, and you don't really know anything about most of the candidates on the ballot.
• Your mind keeps churning after you go to bed and keeps you awake.

If you do feel overloaded, you're not crazy. You're normal. But you may feel distracted, frustrated or half sick, because the average office worker gets 220 messages a day—in emails, memos, phone calls, interruptions and ads. Every year in this country alone, nearly 200,000 books get published, and 60 billion pieces of junk mail are sent.

No wonder a survey of 1,313 managers on four continents found that "one-third of managers suffer from ill health, as a direct consequence of stress associated with information overload. This figure increases to 43 percent among senior managers."

Here are three practices that can help you take back your life.

Practice 1: Tap the Power of Block Days

One of my most powerful strategies is to take a "block day" out of the office once or twice a month. I take my laptop to a college library, where it's quiet and I can't get email. I'm available by cell phone for emergencies, but those rarely come up. I spend my block day doing four things:

• Projects: important ones I can't get to in my usual, constantly interrupted days in the office;
• Planning: I look at my to-do list and calendar and plan accordingly;
• Personal growth: I read something thathelps me do my job better;
• Prayer: I pray for mywork and for my team.

Many people think, "I could never take a block day," but I've found that about 70 percent of office workers can. The other 30 percent can take mini-blocks, where for two hours they forward all calls, put a note on their door saying, "Please do not disturb," or move to a conference room. You'd be surprised how much you can achieve in two hours of focused work.

Practice 2: Change Your Inbox from Curse to Blessing

As a leader, I have to ask myself, "How productive can I be when I'm spending the best hours of my day answering email—when I could be planning, casting vision, meeting with key people?" In my book, Surviving Information Overload, I list 19 strategies for handling email; here are four: