Information Overload
Information Overload And Overwhelm
Information Overload has been defined as “Stress induced by reception of more information than is necessary to make a decision (or that can be understood and digested in the time available) and by attempts to deal with it with outdated time management practices” According to the BusinessDictionary.com
Lately, I have been going through Information Overload. Information Overload is what most if not all Internet Newbies as well as some Webmasters, even some Internet Marketing Gurus go through at some part of their Internet Marketing journey. I went through this information overload back in February 2008, when I first started my internet marketing journey and then gave up all of my internet Marketing. I bought a lot of ebooks, courses, attending too many seminars and this proved too much to handle and far too much information for me to process leading to Information Overload and severe overwhelm. I started way too many projects on differing topics using differnt sources of information without completing any one project. This ultimately, led to my failing in internet marketing.
Please Not Again! What to do, differently?
First of all, don’t get sidetracked. Emails that are sent to you from friends, colleagues, Internet Gurus who you signed into, etc flood into your email inbox everyday and each and every hour. This is what happens to my inbox every single day and quite regularly. I have subscribed to a great many Internet Guru’s Lists and most of them totally bombard my inbox with some useful stuff and some not so useful stuff. Leading to TOO MUCH STUFF that I can’t handle, process and implement and there it is again, INFORMATION OVERLOAD AND INFORMATION OVERWHELM.
DO The Following:
Set Time aside to complete ONE task that you have planned to do.
You can only FOCUS on ONE thing at a time. so STAY FOCUSED on that ONE TASK.
Part of the Studying ONE topic at a time, instead of trying to study too many topics. Studying too many topics, or areas of internet marketing will definitely Drown You with Sooooo much Information and You Will ulitmately suffer from Information Overload and Overwhelm, as I did in February 2008, when I first started my internet marketing journey and nearly once again!
I have been a Victim of Information Overload and many of you out there are also victims of Information Overload which can overwhelm you and stress you out completely. Only a few of those (less than 1%), sadly will be people who manage to FOCUS on a single project, or a single task and Start to Make Money. The rest of the people, like myself in the past do get caught up in the trap of trying to learn every single thing that is presented. This urge to not miss out on anything and urgency to make money rapidly and get rich quickly way of thinking can lead to and can end up going from one idea to another idea. Emails keep flooding in from all of the Internet Guru’s websites and Lists you have ended up subscribing to. You keep carrying on tempted to open each of these emails, feeling compelled to open these emails in case you miss the latest trend or trick and miss out on the information. Thus there is an urgency and determination to open the very latest emails from the latest list you subcribed to, offering the supposed latest information. More and more information! Does this sound familiar??
If you want to make money and learn what you need to learn and set your mind to, you seriously need to FOCUS on what topic you are interested in and not get distracted. Study the Topic and Take Action on the Studying you have carried out. You should have a Study:Action Ratio as part of the Focussing on one project. 1 hour study on say Twitter may mean taking 3 hours on actioning it.
I myself am a victim of this addiction to opening and reading all the emails. I have definitely been there, done it and can wear the T-Shirt “I suffered from Information Overload”. In the past, I have not stayed focussed on the one objective or one topic and made absolutely nothing. Realising this potential mistake was difficult.
Do just one single thing at any time and do not get distracted. IT IS VITAL THAT YOU STAY FOCUSSED on what you are doing and what you want to achieve. ONLY THEN YOU WILL SUCCEED. Yes You Will!
Do not start one project and get distracted and move on to another project UNTIL You are sure that the first one project is completed.
So remember, stay focussed on what you are doing and what you really want to achieve and YOU WILL SUCCEED!
However, don’t ever give up trying to Focus on that one thing.
Use the following to help organise the tasks, project and things you need to do ONE AT A TIME.
Use MindMapping Software.
Use One Note (MS Office if you have it!) to organise your notes and EACH Project you want to work on.
Or create your own Index or Notes in MS Word or any other text based software.
Use www.EverNote.com. Just sign up to evernote.com and use this to file away your notes online and access them from anywhere providing you have internet access!
SO DO JUST ONE SINGLE THING AT A TIME AND FOCUS ON THAT ONE THING and YOU WILL SUCCEED!
To Your Prosperity
Sofina Khan
