Avoid information overload: how to

You know the feeling. You come back from a week in the sun, looking and feeling 10 years younger, only to open your e-mail. A weary five hours later, you've mentally filed 300 e-mails under 'need to reply to', 'should reply to' and 'no way do I intend to reply to.'

And the bad news is that, according to Tina Konstant, co-author, with Morris Taylor, of Overcoming Information Overload, "information overload isn't just about having too much unfinished business on your desk. It's also about how many actions and commitments you're juggling and how big you perceive the consequences to be if you miss anything."

At a recent womenintechnology.co.uk conference, speaker Suzanne Doyle-Morris asked attendees to stand up and clench their fists. She then asked them to unfold one digit for each of the media she called out, such as blogs, websites, and BlackBerries. A surprising number of women were left standing at the end, bemused to find they were living life at the mercy of 10 or more means of communication. Small wonder they were struggling to deal with information overload.

Information overload in the workplace can have huge implications. At the most obvious level, it can prevent you from doing your job properly – it could lose you a promotion, or even your job. At its most severe, it could cause stress, leading to poor mental health. And while Generation Y seem reasonably content to have information constantly coming at them from all directions, there are plenty of workers who predate BlackBerries and even the internet and aren't quite as comfortable with it.

Learn to let go

Konstant says: "The first difficult truth is that information overload is contagious. If you feel it at work, you're going to feel the impact of it at home and vice-versa. The second difficult truth is that it's of your own making. Pieces of paper on your desk can't make you feel overloaded. The importance you attach to those bits of paper can".

Learn to weed out the unimportant. Scan your e-mails rather than reading them in-depth. And teach yourself to recognise what you need to devote time to and what you can discard. Work through your e-mails in batches. Set aside time to deal with correspondence – perhaps earmark two half-hour sessions a day - and stick to it.

Learn to say no

Decide whether meetings are really necessary before committing to them. Do 10 of you really need to schlep to a distant meeting room, or even another building, when a brief phone call will do instead? Do all of you need to attend that meeting, or can one of you go, then brief the rest of the team by e-mail?

If you need to really concentrate on something, let your phone calls go to voicemail, then set aside time to deal with all of the messages at once.

Manage the flow of information: if you prefer e-mails to voicemails, make sure your voicemail message says so – and don't worry about offending people. If they want to contact you, they need to abide by your rules of engagement.

What to do when it all gets too much

Resist the urge to file everything in the bin under your desk. It might help to step away from your desk for a while. Take your paperwork with you, if you want – find an empty office and a tidy environment where you can concentrate. Alternatively, just take yourself off to the nearest coffee shop and give some objective thought to how you're going to deal with your information backlog.

In the long-term

Let people know about your new resolutions. If they contact you on a regular basis about a product you know you'll never need, then tell them so, politely. If you're included in a regular meeting without really needing to attend, let them know you're happy to be represented by a colleague. Remember it's your time you're managing, and be firm with people who make demands on it. And just once in a while, switch off your BlackBerry.

Expert's view

Tina Konstant, co-author, Overcoming Information Overload

What are the biggest challenges?

There are two major challenges when managing information overload imagination and procrastination. The circumstances that lead people to experience the side effects of overload are as varied as those who suffer from the condition. Some people can live in chaos for years and might never experience overload, while others feel overwhelmed if they have more than two days' worth of unopened post on their desk.

The mental switch that shifts people from calm to chaos, however, is the same for everyone: one minute they feel in control, the next, they don't.

The trigger could be anything from a budget being cut at a crucial stage of a project to losing a set of keys. It's a single event that, in our minds, we attach significance and consequence to.

As soon as we decide the consequences attached to our situation are unmanageable, our imagination steps in and builds horror stories about how serious those consequences will be. We feel overwhelmed, isolated and trapped. In our minds the situation grows. Soon, everything seems out of control.

So what do we do? We can't possibly do everything. So instead, we do nothing. That's when procrastination takes over. It's a perfectly designed, immediately available survival tactic. But, have you ever had a document on your desk that you've avoided for weeks because you are sure it's going to be tough to deal with, then, when you have no choice, you finally scan it to find that of the 200 pages you only have to read 20? That's what dealing with overload is like. The reality is never as bad as you imagine it to be.

What should you avoid doing?

Avoid avoidance. If you don't, you will end up thinking about what you should be doing instead of getting it done.

Top tips

• Do the most difficult thing first.
• Never procrastinate. Clear your in-tray and do what you say you're going to do, every day.
• Do one thing at a time. Take one piece of information, deal with it, file it and then move on.

Further information

Books

• Managing Information Overload, Tina Konstant and Morris Taylor, Chartered Management Institute and Hodder Education, £8.99, ISBN0340959029
• Managing E-mail: Hints and Tips for an Empty Inbox, Red Guide, £5.99, ISBN1861354282

Articles

• Info overload causes mental problems
• E-mail angst