Here is a great blog post with suggestions to reduce information overload in the new year. Here’s an excerpt:
The past year has been marked by increases in the cost of Information Overload, which for the U.S. economy now stands at $997 billion, as well as hopeful signs that awareness of the problem is rising as well.
With the New Year already underway, we can start with a few simple New Year’s Resolutions that are time tested in lowering the amount of Information Overload we all face.
1.) Learn better search techniques. Control search results with Boolean logic by using AND or OR and use advanced options to narrow the field.
2.) Use restraint in communications. Don’t cc the world, don’t include more people than necessary in any communication, avoid gratuitous “thanks” and “great” replies, and avoid reply-to-all at all costs.
Read more…
To find out what you consider to be the greatest sources of Information Overload, both for you individually and for your organization, as well as to understand how these challenges are being addressed, the research firm, Basex, developed a survey that asks you to share your thoughts on this topic.
Please click here to take the survey.
Participants will receive an Executive Summary of the survey’s findings and can also enter a drawing to win a set of Dilbert CubeGuard information overload blockers (three sets will be awarded). Please share the survey link with colleagues who should be interested in the results.
Wednesday, October 20 is Information Overload Day. No, we won’t be overloading you with more info that day; we’re just trying to get the world to recognize all of the issues that we’re experiencing because of sooooo much information.
We are challenging everyone to send just 10% fewer email messages that day. The impact to the world is over $180 billion in productivity.
Here are two things you can do:
1. Get everyone on board with turning off their Blackberries and SmartPhones at 6PM (or earlier) and leaving them off for the entire night. Pass the word!
2. Join the webinar highlighting information overload and the issues that comes with it being put on by BASEX, the research firm. Because I have a working relationship with them, they have offered me a code for you to use that waives the $75 registration, but on ONE condition. You must promise toNOT multi-task while participating in the webinar. The code to use to waive the fee is:
EganGuest
Here is the link to register: http://InformationOverloadDay.com Remember to use code EganGuest to waive the registration fee.
Hi everyone. Here is the code for you to use to waive the fee for the great webinar on information overload.
EganGuest – yep – that’s the code:
EganGuest
There is ONE caveat – you must PROMISE to NOT multitask while on the webinar.
Here is the link for the webinar and information about it.
http://www.informationoverloadday.com/
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Information Overload Awareness Day is an annual workplace observance that calls attention to the problem of Information Overload and how it impacts both individuals and organizations.
Information Overload describes an excess of information that results in the loss of ability to make decisions, process information, and prioritize tasks. Organizations of all shapes and sizes have already been significantly impacted by information overload, a problem that costs the U.S. economy $900 billion per year in lower productivity and throttled innovation according to research from Basex.
An online event has been set for October 20th to commemorate the day. It features a variety of speakers that will address the key issues and challenges associated with lessening the occurrence of Information Overload.
- Speakers and presentations focused on critical cultural, organizational, business and IT topics that Information Overload impacts.
- Emphasis on key business issues and drivers.
- Presentation and discussions by senior executives of global companies of their ideas, successes, failures, and strategies.
- Analysis of pertinent issues.
- Tactical and strategic recommendations.
Is your company overloaded?
Join us on October 20!
Great post by Jonathan Spira entitled, “The Siren’s Call of Information Overload”
Here’s an excerpt:
Instead of multitasking what we actually do is task switching which is really a series of continuous interruptions. While this is done in the belief that one is being more efficient and getting more done, nothing could be farther from the truth. Each interruption comes with a penalty. Read more…
Here is the link.
The average worker today focuses on a task for about three minutes – that’s it. Then, they’re interrupted or they interrupt themselves. Multitasking is a bunch of hooey. You can’t do two things at once, just like you can’t be in two places at the same time. Yes, you can SHIFT from one task to another, but you can’t do two things at once. Alot of folks think they can… And then they give each task less than 100% attention. What does that say for productivity?
Here is a good post with some background research on the whole subject of multitasking:
http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/teachingblog/2010/03/04/multitasking-revisited/
According to our friends a Basex, this is how knowledge workers spend their workdays:
28% – Unnecessary interruptions and recovery time
25% – Creating Content/ Doing Work
20% – In Meetings
15% – Searching, both online and in paper
12% – What’s left…
Deep thought: if you manage those email interruptions by shutting your inbox down, how much time will you reclaim?
RePrinting: BASEX:COMMENTARY-OF-THE-WEEK BY JONATHAN B. SPIRA
E-MAIL: REPORTS OF MY DEMISE ARE PREMATURE
It is both premature and foolhardy to proclaim that e-mail’s reign as “king of communications” is over as a recent Wall Street Journal article trumpets.
Not that e-mail is the best communications medium for everything; indeed we know very well it isn’t.
Instead, e-mail has, in the past 15 years in particular, become that path of least resistance for almost everything that transpires within an organization.
Update status? Send an e-mail to a few hundred of one’s closest colleagues.
Finish a report? Send another e-mail to a few hundred of one’s closest colleagues.
The fact is that we use e-mail opportunistically rather than with an understanding as to what the impact of its use might be.
Sending that status report to those few hundred colleagues actually cost the organization ca. 24 hours in lost time when one calculates the few minutes each person spent opening the e-mail he didn’t need to receive in the first place – plus the “recovery time,” which is the time it takes to get back to where one was in the task that was interrupted.
The result of all of our communications (and it isn’t just e-mail) is Information Overload, a problem that costs the U.S. economy ca. $900 billion per annum. On August 12, Information Overload Awareness Day was observed around the world with meetings and discussions (see http://www.basexblog.com/2009/07/09/information-overload-awareness-day/).
But that’s just one day – each additional day that we don’t address the problem of Information Overload and take steps to lessen its impact costs billions.
Companies can take steps to lower their exposure to Information Overload (an article about what can be done may be found at
http://www.basexblog.com/2009/04/23/lowering-your-information-overload-exposure/)
but even raising awareness of the problem and understanding the impact of overusing such tools as e-mail can make a big difference.
This Analyst Opinion is also available online at http://www.basexblog.com/2009/10/15/e-mail-reports-of-my-demise-are-premature/
Jonathan B. Spira is CEO and Chief Analyst at Basex. He can be reached at jspira@basex.com
More interesting “stuff” from “Workplace interruptions cost US economy $588 bn a year”
by The EditorsFinancial Express, 01/09/2006
“Over the past decade, psychiatrist Edward Hallowell has seen a tenfold rise in the number of patients with symptoms that closely resemble those of attention-deficit disorder (ADD), but of a work-induced variety.
“They complained that they were more irritable than they wanted to be. Their productivity was declining. They couldn’t get organised.”
Hallowell and his frequent collaborator, Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, believe that the neurochemistry of addiction may underlie the compulsive use of cell phones, computers and blackberrys.
Psychologists call the increasingly common addiction to web-based activity ‘online compulsive disorder,’ Hallowell calls it ‘screen sucking’.”
…now THAT’S a label!
Here’s the link to the press release: http://www.basex.com/press.nsf/0/E53F4C6142D119A6852570F9001AB0EC?OpenDocument
This is the most recent survey we could find… we can only assume the numbers are growing.
“Workplace interruptions cost US economy $588 bn a year”
by The EditorsFinancial Express, 01/09/2006
Here is an excerpt:
Interruptions consume 2.1 hours a day or 28% of the workday and cost American economy $588 billion a year, a 2005 survey showed.
The survey by Basex, an information technology research firm, found that the time lost for productivity included not only unimportant interruptions and distractions but also recovery time associated with getting back on the task.
The survey reported in an issue of Time Magazine, was based on study of 1,000 office workers.
Estimating an average salary of $21 an hour for knowledge workers, those who perform tasks involving information, Basex calculated that workplace interruptions cost the US economy $588 billion a year.
A team led by Gloria Mark and Victor Gonzalez of the University of California at Irvine tracked 36 office workers and found that the employees devoted an average of just 11 minutes to a project before the ping of an e-mail, the ring of the phone or a knock on the cubicle pulled them in another direction.
Once they were interrupted, it took, on average, 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they managed to do so at all that day, Time reports. Workers in the study were juggling an average of 12 projects apiece, a situation one subject described as ‘constant, multitasking craziness.’
The five biggest causes of interruption in descending order, according to Gloria Mark of the University of California, were: a colleague stopping by, worker being called away from the desk (or leaving voluntarily), arrival of new e-mail, worker doing another task on the computer and a phone call
