Posts Tagged 'information overload'

How I Bring Value by NOT Teaching Time Management

Posted on November 27th, 2012 · Posted in Organizational Solutions

I was explaining to a friend what I do in Information Overload space and at some point he said he’d thought I was doing Time Management consulting, and now he realized I don’t. Which set me thinking, and I realized there are two approaches to the problem, and indeed mine is not that of promoting Time Management practices directly. Why time management training does you good When I say Time Management consulting,  I refer loosely to the practice of educating people on how to handle their information overload in the context of improving their overall work, task and time management.. Read more

New Insight Article: Cognitive Disability Caused by Information Overload

Posted on November 5th, 2012 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I’m continuing to write the series of articles that analyze the negative effects of Information Overload in an enterprise setting (though many of the points noted apply to individual knowledge workers, such as small business owners, as well). The second of these articles discusses an effect that is much less appreciated than the time loss I’d looked at in the preceding article: Cognitive disability resulting from endless distractions, interruptions and general information overload in the workplace. This impacts people’s mental acuity, creativity, quality of decision making, and error rates. You need to see the research findings to understand how harmful.. Read more

Handling Obsolescence of Knowledge in Information Work

Posted on October 18th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

We need food to survive. Old food can do us harm. Therefore, we have a range of defense mechanisms – from our noses and taste buds to mandatory “best use before” dates on food packages – to detect and eliminate obsolete food. We need information to survive in today’s workplace. Old information can do us harm. Where are the defense mechanisms to detect and eliminate obsolete knowledge? Help! We’re drowning in old information! Everybody complains about drowning in information overload, be it incoming email overload, social media addiction, too many RSS feeds, and so on. We also complain about useless.. Read more

New Insight Article: Time Loss Effect of Information Overload

Posted on October 5th, 2012 · Posted in Impact and Symptoms

I decided to write a series of articles that analyze the negative effects of Information Overload in an enterprise setting (though many of the points noted apply to individual knowledge workers, such as small business owners, as well). The first of these articles analyzes an effect that is at once widely appreciated and yet often misunderstood: the loss of time due to email overload and interruptions, which has been quantified at a day or more of lost time per week. I’ve been looking at this for years, though my original work revolved around email overload and interruptions, and today a.. Read more

Who Should Teach Future Employees Information Overload Coping Skills?

Posted on September 6th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

Houston, we have a problem Have you ever stopped to think how our information overload looks to a new college graduate? We all know that Information Overload is a problem; the staggering impact on the enterprise and the economy – about a Trillion dollars a year in the US alone – has been well documented. We know that knowledge workers in our corporations are in a state of constant distraction and stress; and some of us – myself included – are doing what we can to help them cope. But what of the inflow of new employees, those bright young.. Read more

The Dark Side of Information Overload

Posted on September 2nd, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

What I find fascinating about Information Overload in organizations is that there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. There is a distinct layer of causes to this problem that I’ve been referring to collectively as “The Dark Side of Information Overload”, and they have a real presence in the murky undercurrents below the surface of the corporate culture. The formal culture, with its mission statements and values emphasizing fairness and cooperation, never acknowledges this Dark Side; but the employees can unerringly identify it and respond with defensive measures that can result in anything but cooperation. I’ve been.. Read more

Trends in Information Overload: is it Getting Better or Worse?

Posted on August 27th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was a panelist in a webinar about email overload and was asked by the moderator whether I can describe some trends of the Information Overload problem over the years. Well – I’ve been leading the battle on information overload in the workplace for 18 years now, so at least I have a long span of years to seek trends in… and it was a good question. How has the Email Overload problem evolved since 1995? My answer: I can give some bad news, and some – though not dramatic – good news. The bad news is that Information Overload.. Read more

Look in the mirror

Posted on March 6th, 2012 · Posted in Individual Solutions

Sometimes what it takes is to look at oneself in a figurative mirror. People hear me lecture about Information Overload and the absurd behaviors it makes us adopt, and they light up with recognition; many come to me afterward to share excitedly how they saw their own life in my descriptions. Which is fine and good, but I like to think that at least some of them go on to change their actions and attain a better life as a side benefit of having had this mirror put in front of them. I first saw this effect long ago when.. Read more

All alone in the info-flood

Posted on January 6th, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Individual Solutions

Although practically every organization is full of knowledge workers groaning under a deluge of email, it’s interesting to note that in many of them I run into a small minority of people who have things under control. I discover them on occasion when I explain the various solutions I can bring in, and someone says “Oh, but I already handle this by…” or “I never do that, I always…” The things they do vary; my favorite are the rare heroes who tell me they turn off all electronic devices after work hours, but there are many variations. Basically these people.. Read more

How ignorance can lead to Information Overload

Posted on September 13th, 2011 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was discussing Email Overload with a friend of mine who is a veteran manager at an international hi-tech company, and he made an interesting observation. His company, he said, is large enough that many email senders have no idea who should be copied on their messages; they can’t be sure who “needs to know”, so they just CC everyone who is remotely likely to be involved. Basically, they are replacing “Need to Know” with “Might possibly need to know”. Of course, although these folks think “better safe than sorry”, they should be very sorry – the recipients that don’t.. Read more