Unburden Your Mind
Unburden your mind and protect yourself from the dangers of information overload.
Unburden your mind and protect yourself from the dangers of information overload.
We are bombarded with information from many sources, and our minds can only handle so much.
If you’re a knowledge worker, then it’s not possible to remove yourself from the torrents of information that is going to flow your way.
We’re not machines and our mind, however resilient, needs to be protected from information overload in order to stay healthy.
According a study called “Information Overload Syndrome: a bibliographic review”*, the negative effects of information overload include inefficient work, confusion, delay in making decisions, lack of critical evaluation of information, loss of control over information, refusal to receive communication, lack of general perspective, greater tolerance for error, anxiety, and stress.
So how do we avoid information overload and unburden our minds?
Here’s three tips that I use that can help you to handle the information thrown at you every single day.
- Decide what to consume and what to deflect
- Determine what is within your control and what is not
- Deal with the information within your control
Firstly, - Decide. Work out what’s important and what’s not and only consume what’s important. Once you decide what’s what, have an action plan in place for this to happen. Personally, I don’t find things on social media very valuable, so I deflect as much of this as I can. I find audiobooks valuable, so I consume as much of this as I can. This way I decide what to consume and what to deflect. You’ll have your own priorities, so decide what’s important to you and develop an approach for consuming and deflecting information.
Second, Determine what you can control and what you cannot. Usually, things that are internal are controllable and things that are external are not. For example, you can control your thoughts, feelings and actions, but you cannot control other people’s thoughts, feelings and actions. If you’re not happy with the things you can control, change it, it’s within your control. The external things that you can’t control, you can’t change, however, you can change how you think and feel about these things, so focus on what you can control.
One of my favourite sayings is “Why Worry? If you can do something about it, why worry? If you can’t do anything about it, why worry?”
Thirdly, Deal with the information you control. Once it’s in your head, what do you do with it? My recommendation is to declutter and only carry what you need. I liken this to computer RAM or Random Access Memory. RAM is the memory used for processing tasks. When your computer does too much and there’s not enough RAM, things slow down. Programs run slowly and productivity drops. Errors occur. Things shut down.
RAM for your brain is the same. If you’re juggling too much information in your conscious mind, things are going to slow down and errors will occur. Remembering appointments, and long lists of items to be done whilst performing tasks will burden your mind. Too much burden will result in you reaching a point where you slow down and become unproductive. As time goes on, this will have a negative affect your outlook and mental health.
Use productivity tools to reduce mental clutter and unburden your mind. Make use of a diary or calendar, notebooks or post it notes to capture these important, but not immediately important, pieces of information. This will free up processing memory and you will be more efficient and feel a lot better about it.
Address information overload by deciding what to consume or deflect, determine what’s in your control and what’s not in your control, and lastly, deal with the information you control.
Decide, Determine and Deal.
By successfully managing information overload, you’ll be better at what you do and be healthier and happier.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
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