Managing Information Overload

01-03-2008 5:15 PM

MeganKeane

Top 10 Contributor

Joined on 08-20-2001

San Francisco, CA and the web

One of the continuous challenges I have is keeping up with the onslaught of information out there on the Web. There's numerous blogs, articles, and news sources I like to keep tabs on that are continually being updated. It often gets overwhelming to try to keep up with everything I want to read. TechSoup blog points out a recent Web Worker Daily blog post that offers some tips on managing reading material effectively.

How do you stay on top of reading material? Share your suggestions for staying on top of information overload.

--Megan

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RE: Managing Information Overload

01-04-2008 6:37 AM

MikeWebb45

Top 75 Contributor

Joined on 12-08-2003

Wood River, NE

I created a bookmark folder in Firefox of the blogs and sites I need to be on top of. I then do an "open all bookmarks" and go through them over morning coffee. Gets me current so I can then move on to the tasks of the day.
I also have 8 MS newsgroups subscribed to in Outlook Express that I read each morning. I almost always find a tip or two each day in the solutions posed by others. I also use it as my first stab at getting answers.

====================================== Michael J. Webb Administrative Assistant/IT Administrator Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust, Inc. 6611 W. Whooping Crane Dr. Wood River, NE 68883 Office (308) 384-4633 x104 FAX (308) 384-7209 email Mike_Webb -at- WhoopingCrane.org www.whoopingcrane.org ======================================

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RE: Managing Information Overload

01-04-2008 10:53 AM

west7th

Top 50 Contributor

Joined on 01-08-2006

St. Paul

Google Reader.

RSS feeds from the internets.

.

In reply to

RE: Managing Information Overload

01-04-2008 11:00 AM

MeganKeane

Top 10 Contributor

Joined on 08-20-2001

San Francisco, CA and the web

That bookmark folder is a great idea, Mike, I think I'm going to give that a try. Doing it first thing is a good way to make sure you're regularly checking up on things and hit those first off.

--Megan

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RE: Managing Information Overload

01-05-2008 10:31 PM

Rog

Top 10 Contributor

Joined on 06-11-2004

www.igoogle.com

I like the way I organize various feeds by tabs, and then over morning coffee, I can use to Firefox to quickly "control t" (or "apple-t") articles of interest in a new tab.

To quickly navigate through the tabs, I simply use "control up / down" (or "apple-shift arrow"). And when I'm done reading and wanna close that article, I can use "control-w" (or "apple-w").

I slam through lots and lots of news that way!

(Slightly unrelated, but for certain types of OPML based feeds, I like to use Thunderbird's RSS reader)

Google reader is good for RSS (maybe even better in some ways), but I'm just sorta stuck in my iGoogle groove.

I also really like Yahoo! Pipes and how you can use it to quickly find all sorts of information scattered all over the place.

On the subject of Yahoo! Pipes, has someone at TechSoup considered making a Yahoo! Pipe mash of, say, Techsoup RSS, delicious tags, and any other Techsoup-esque stuff?

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RE: Managing Information Overload

01-07-2008 9:35 AM

mkirros

Top 50 Contributor

Joined on 12-16-2004

One of the most important issues in avoiding being overwhelmed by information is to make sure you're getting the information you want and need without lots of extraneous info. Review your feed subscriptions periodically and weed out those that aren't useful. I've dropped several lately because they either weren't giving me anything I needed, or weren't giving me something I wasn't already getting somewhere else.

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RE: Managing Information Overload

01-14-2008 9:14 AM

rrci

Top 100 Contributor

Joined on 01-21-2005

St. George, Utah

There are two kinds of information overload: option overload and data overload. The first one is when there are so many options, you don't know which one to pick. The other one is when so much is coming in, you can't handle it.

For option overload, you either pick one or more options at random or see if any are more appealing than the others. If you can remove options, you do. For data overload, you need to use filters to sort/remove what you don't need or are not interested in, or start removing data sources you don't need/want.

Myself, I keep certain webpages open all the time and refresh them when I want to check for new stuff. I don't have them refresh automatically since I want to see what's different since the last time I click on Refresh.

I use web feeds every so often, but I try to limit my data sources in order to avoid data overload.

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RE: Managing Information Overload

06-06-2008 5:03 PM

MeganKeane

Top 10 Contributor

Joined on 08-20-2001

San Francisco, CA and the web

I just started using a tool I heard about called Read Later. How many times have you ran across something you wanted to read, but didn't have the time to at the moment? ReadLater is a little Firefox extension that has a little button that sits on your toolbar. When you run across something you want to read, click the "Read Later" button and it will save it for you. When you have the time later to do some reading, you can visit your Read Later page and check out all the things you've saved here.

Now of course, the trick is finding the "later" time to catch up on it...

Best,

Megan

In reply to

RE: Managing Information Overload

06-10-2008 7:39 AM

RSS feeds for sites that have them - I use Bloglines to read them.

For sites that don't have RSS feeds or e-newsletters, I use WatchThatPage.com . Free and excellent way to automagically check a bunch of sites many times during the day, categorize them and have emails sent to me whenever there are changes.

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