I am an offline business owner and an internet marketer. I’ve owned my “brick & mortar” business for about 17 years, and it runs along pretty smoothly without a lot of research and discovery. I’m grateful for that. Now, the online business is different – it has required that I study, take online courses, attend conferences, learn, stop to put it to use, then study and learn more, and the cycle is endless for the forseeable future. No one loves learning and new information more than I do. I was one of those crazy kids who loved school. There was something simply exhilarating about new information. But sometimes, I feel the weight of information overload, or as some call it, “information overwhelm.” I want to tell you about the ways I have found to deal with this very real problem.
Too much information too fast can really put a damper on your productivity and even your creativity. We have to give ourselves some breathing room, some space to just think about things. I know if you’re in the online marketing business, you know what I mean. I would think about all those eBooks or eCourses I purchased that were just sitting there on my hard drive. In the meantime, new offers arrive daily, sometimes hourly in my email InBox. The information superhighway can be a place fraught with danger if we don’t slow down and enjoy the journey.
- Don’t sign up for more than one new class at a time, even though it’s being offered by someone you know, like and trust. You can’t divide your thinking and your time up but so much or you’ll suffer from overload and none of the information will sink in. So at all costs, resist the urge. If it’s that great of an offer or a class, it will be available later.
- When taking a class, either live or online, find at least 3 “Ah-Ha” things that you can take action on right away. Then do it! Take that action – put the learning to good use right away, before you forget or find an excuse to procrastinate. Put these action steps on your calendar. If they’re good enough for you to pay to learn, then they’re good enough to actually schedule the correlating action. Keep a notebook fo these actions that you have taken. Call it your “Action Notebook.”
- Work on one project at a time, or if you are researching a topic, set aside either a special day or even a whole week to explore just that alone. For instance, if you are learning new WordPress or blogging skills, concentrate on only that. A focused approach is much more effective than what I call a “scatter-shot” approach.
- Take a day off! That’s right – you heard me. Shut yourself off from technology for a whole day at a time. Get away from your computer, your email and your cell phone. Go outside, take walks, sit in a different room than where you work. Get caught up on some fun reading. Have lunch or dinner with friends. You absolutely need this in order to function at your top performance.
All you online marketers out there, tell me what you do to deal with “Information Overwhelm.” Leave a comment, please. I really enjoy hearing from you.
Are we drinking the same water? I posted on this very subject today! However, we both come at it with different styles! I LOVE your tips. All good and all helpful! Rock on 🙂
Great tips Jeanne!
Most people, like me, won’t be happy with just one project at a time. Sadly, it’s probably the only proper way to do things.
Great tips for getting over information overload, especially from all the ‘ecources’, ‘ebooks, and ‘eproducts’. I’m planning on taking it Easy soon 🙂
–PK
This is great advice Jeanne. One of my biggest down fall that contributes to info overload is with I call “on line rabbit trails.” I start reading to learn one thing, something else in that info catches my interest. So I look into that. And before you know it, hours have gone by and all I have accomplished is that my list of “what I want to learn” got longer and my knowledge remained unchanged!
Great stuff Jeanne! I wrote a similar post a while back. I see in one of the comments left by Lynne that she calls going in too many directions “online rabbit holes” I love that and am going to use it. (hope you don’t mind Lynne!) I call it “seeing something shiny” LOL, and it happens too often. I’ve really had to learn to be disciplined. It’s still not easy. See you around the Ultimate Blog Challenge!
Blessings.
Celene Harrelson
I’m still divided between two online strategies.. which takes a lot of time to implement but I believe the long hours will be worth it. It’s a little like having a day job while you get another business up and running.
However, I’ve helped myself by opting out of most of my in-coming email. I only follow a few people. I could spend all day reading e-mails being tempted by unneeded offers. I’m now much more focused.
I have a little trick I use to help me avoid information overload when doing work online. Whether I’m writing my own articles, researching for a class I’m creating or simply looking for inspiration. I give myself a definite timespan to go ahead and search till my hearts content – ten or twenty minutes let’s say. Durig this time I’ll keep any pages that I’m struck by or find particularly useful open in their own individual tab. Then once my time searching time is up I actually unplug myself from my internet connection and get to work actually making use of what I’ve found. It’s helped me immensly in not spending hours doing ‘research’ and then having nothing to show for it. Deciding in advance what my limitations are can be quite liberating. I hope it helps you too. : )
Always,
Zoe x
I am also one of those that works on more than one project at a time.
The bookmarking tool helps me to keep it all straight. For example I know I have a new blogging series coming up. When I see good ideas or good posts I want to refer to I simple bookmark them and go back when I am ready to actually do the work.
Or I work on a new membership site as I am writing my blog. I can pull those blog posts and repurpose them for the membership site.
Lately I have been getting all of the component parts together for a new system I am using. It has been very time consuming…but I still keep up with my blogs.
Whew! No wonder I feel like a crazy woman! I think your take a break step is in order.
I just read Martha’s post on the same topic! Great suggestions – – I think that taking action on what you’re learning and taking time off are very valuable. Information overload is such a common challenge for people online and that’s a main reason I do what I do with my “building blocks” concept. Thanks for your post – – it’s so important!