Jason K. Guinn

TMI: Too Much Information...

We often use that phrase to indicate that someone has shared a tidbit of information with us that we might prefer not to know. However I find myself thinking about how to manage information more and more. It seems as though with each day that passes, I get farther and farther behind in managing all of the digital information that is coming my way and seem to be losing my ability to effectively process and archive all that information.

I'm now up to four e-mail addresses, three voice mailboxes, a Twitter account, a MySpace account, ongoing participation in several discussion forums, nearly 200 RSS feeds, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and a host of other interactive communities that pound me with information. So to those of you that have messaged me and are still waiting for a reply - my apologies. Hang in there. I will get back with you. I'm down to under 60 unread e-mails at the moment.

Unfortunately I find myself devoting time to processing the quick, information-only communications with much more regularity than the messages that require dedicated thought and time to process (which are often more important than the "quickies"!). Personally, I find myself struggling to make time for the more lengthy and thoughtful responses. I continue to defer a message that I know will require effort until some time in the future when I believe that I will have more time to sit and dedicate full attention to that particular request. Trouble is that that point in the future never seems to come any more.

Sure, there are tools available to help manage my day. Some of them are excellent tools, like OmniFocus. But I find myself unwilling to spend the time to REALLY begin working in a GTD paradigm. More properly, I can't seem to make time to create the contexts and projects that are needed to begin really chipping away at getting things done. How have others implemented GTD? Do you use a coach? Did you attend seminars?

And what techniques are being used to effectively categorize and prioritize messages? The tracking number for the last thing I ordered from Amazon is probably important to keep, but not something that is urgently demanding my attention. So how do I tuck that bit of information away somewhere and store it ONLY while it is relevant information? Assuming my package arrives in good shape, I have no need whatsoever to store that bit of information after my package is delivered. How can I be sure and trash that communication when it is no longer relevant to avoid clutter?

I've begun to fully use GMail's archival functions, and find that to be noticeably more efficient. But I'm definitely curious how others manage the never-ending flood of information that comes our way.

And make no mistake - I'm very thankful for the rapid access to vast amounts of information. I just need to get a better system for digesting and archiving all that information. 

Obviously some things are changing around here. Stay tuned for more to come...