Audio available at http://goo.gl/44xPsX. This 13 minute presentation was made on Information Overload Awareness Day to the IORG. It focuses on a single psychological object that is at the root of all information overload, bar none.
3. Know
Walking through a library doesn’t trigger a
feeling of information overload.
(But walking through the rain without an
umbrella does make you wet…)
4. Know 2
A random stream of tweets also
doesn’t trigger a feeling of
information overload…
10. Our Journey
From – easy answers that prove we are stuck
To – having a fresh angle on the problem,
hopefully grounded in research
11. Hypothesis:
Overload is a psychological
phenomena that has its roots in a
process.
But has tangible effects
12. Time Demand
A time demand is an internal,
individual commitment to complete
an action in the future
– A psychological object –
with physical properties
14. Different from a task
By definition, a time demand is
defined by the agency or
ownership of the individual.
15. In our teens…
We discover a connection…
Between completing time demands
and fulfilling the vast majority of our
goals
16. An Inescapable Link
All except the simplest goals involve the
creation and management
of
time demands
So we teach ourselves habits, practices
and rituals
17. In order to…
…“hold on” to time demands… to
prevent them from slipping through
the cracks
20. 1950’s
Your teenage habits, practices and rituals
for managing time demands lasted a
lifetime
In a day, you see more information than
your grandparents saw in a month
21. 2010’s
Your teenage habits, practices and
rituals are stale within months /
years
Because… you see more information in
a day…
23. A backlog
We live in a backlog of time demands
(that we have forgotten we created
with our habits, practices and rituals)
24. For example
How many items can you leave as reminders on
your desk…
before that tactic becomes useless, and then
the source of a new bigger problem?
5? 15? 27?
25. We try to cope by fixing…
• Our filters
• Our manager
• Our projects
• Our corporate employer
• Our world
26. Solution 1 – Improve Throughput
• Change the methods you use to manage time
demands – via the 7 fundamental skills*
• Start wherever you are now, analyze it and
make incremental, planned changes based on
best-practices
*The 7 fundamental skills are: Capturing, Emptying, Tossing, Acting
Now, Storing, Scheduling and Listing
Ref. Wade, Francis (2014.) Perfect Time-Based Productivity
27. Solution 2 – Upgrade the Quality
What would stop you from creating new time
demands?
1. Better information at your fingertips about the
impact of current commitments. e.g. 3 hours of
space left in the next 168 hours. Not just
gut feelings.
2. Better estimates of the duration of time demands –
reversing the planning fallacy
28. Solution 3 – Better scheduling
Moving beyond the use of
- infinitely long To-Do lists
- appointment calendars limited to meetings
- mental juggling of time demands
To auto-scheduling our time, thereby living
within our means i.e. a time demand diet
29. 3 Surprising Reasons
We can’t stop being overloaded
1. We don’t know that we create time demands
2. We get stuck in idiosyncratic teenage habits
3. We focus on improving the wrong things e.g.
our gadgets instead of the 7 fundamentals
30. Thank You
www.2time-sys.com
@fwade
Let’s continue the conversation after
the Q&A in the Information Overload
Network group on Linkedin
“Between stimulus and response there is
a space. In that space we have a choice.
In that choice lies our freedom.”
– Viktor Frankl
Editor's Notes
What if information overload can be shown to be entirely within your control? What if it starts in an unlikely place – your mind?