How close are you to your information "breaking point"

In 2010, LexisNexis conducted an international study of white collar workers.  They looked at their attitudes to and experiences of information in the workplace.

Of the findings that came out of this survey there are two we feel important to look at:

• Half of white collar professionals say that if the amount of information they receive continues to increase, they will soon reach a breaking point where they cannot handle anymore.
• Approximately one in two white collar professionals surveyed report feeling demoralized when they can't manage all the information that comes their way at work.

In looking at these findings, what caught our attention was the emotion behind them - "breaking point" and "demoralised" -  which is the human cost of our information-rich world.  

We know that when we designed Unified Inbox (click here for release information) we put a lot of thought into how to manage these increasing information flows, because to us, our work is what we love but sometimes we need a bit of technological help to keep it that way.  We hope we can keep your work that way too!

 

 

Information Overload - where are we at?

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]"Information is not knowledge"
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
James Gleick

 

Information overload was a term first popularized by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock.  He put forth the case that information overload was similar to sensory overload and had similar effects - disorientation and lack of responsiveness.  However he also went further in describing these effects - "when the individual is plunged into a fast and irregularly changing situation, or a novelty-loaded context ... his predictive accuracy plummets. He can no longer make the reasonably correct assessments on which rational behavior is dependent."

Yet even in April 2008,the New York Times reported that "E-MAIL has become the bane of some people's professional lives" due to information overload, yet "none of [the current wave of high-profile Internet startups focused on email] really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps us prepare replies".

It is this information overload that many of us appear to be fighting each day as more and more messaging addressed to us or relevant to us comes through our mailboxes.  We're no longer just talking about emails but also Twitter (that mentions us or our business), Facebook (updates from our friends) and instant messaging and texting.  All of these messaging options are looking for a piece of our attention.

It may not, however, all be the fault of the increasing volumes of information coming our way.  In September of 2008 a presentation was given at the Web 2.0 Expo by Clay Shirky entitled "It's Not Information Overload. It's Filter Failure".  Some cognitive scientists and graphic designers have also emphasized the distinction between raw information and information in a form we can use in thinking. In this view, information overload may be better viewed as organization underload.

In his recently published book "The Information", James Gleick writes:

There are two keys to cope with the information flood: searching and filtering. Think about how many times you are having a conversation with a group of people, and the most interesting feature of the conversation is some dispute over something you can't quite remember. Now, any one of us has the power to pull out their iPhone and do a Google search—it's just a matter of who is going to be rude enough to do it first [laughs]. We are now like gods in our ability to search for and find information. But where we remain all too mortal is in our ability to process it, to make sense of it, and to filter and find the information we want.

All of this suggests:

1.  the information wave is not going away or getting smaller
2.  to manage this flood we need the support of the tools we use each day.

Unified Inbox (sign up here for release information) has at its heart the tools required to manage this information flood, to ensure that you can stop overload, and start living.

 

Information Overload - where are we at?

"Information is not knowledge"
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
James Gleick

Information overload was a term first popularized by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock.  He put forth the case that information overload was similar to sensory overload and had similar effects - disorientation and lack of responsiveness.  However he also went further in describing these effects - "when the individual is plunged into a fast and irregularly changing situation, or a novelty-loaded context ... his predictive accuracy plummets. He can no longer make the reasonably correct assessments on which rational behavior is dependent."

Yet even in April 2008,the New York Times reported that "E-MAIL has become the bane of some people's professional lives" due to information overload, yet "none of [the current wave of high-profile Internet startups focused on email] really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps us prepare replies".

It is this information overload that many of us appear to be fighting each day as more and more messaging addressed to us or relevant to us comes through our mailboxes.  We're no longer just talking about emails but also Twitter (that mentions us or our business), Facebook (updates from our friends) and instant messaging and texting.  All of these messaging options are looking for a piece of our attention.

It may not, however, all be the fault of the increasing volumes of information coming our way.  In September of 2008 a presentation was given at the Web 2.0 Expo by Clay Shirky entitled "It's Not Information Overload. It's Filter Failure".  Some cognitive scientists and graphic designers have also emphasized the distinction between raw information and information in a form we can use in thinking. In this view, information overload may be better viewed as organization underload.

In his recently published book "The Information", James Gleick writes:

There are two keys to cope with the information flood: searching and filtering. Think about how many times you are having a conversation with a group of people, and the most interesting feature of the conversation is some dispute over something you can't quite remember. Now, any one of us has the power to pull out their iPhone and do a Google search—it's just a matter of who is going to be rude enough to do it first [laughs]. We are now like gods in our ability to search for and find information. But where we remain all too mortal is in our ability to process it, to make sense of it, and to filter and find the information we want.

All of this suggests:

1.  the information wave is not going away or getting smaller
2.  to manage this flood we need the support of the tools we use each day.

Unified Inbox (sign up here for release information) has at its heart the tools required to manage this information flood, to ensure that you can stop overload, and start living.

 

 

 

 

And as we now flood the world with information, it becomes harder and harder to find meaning. That paradox is the final tension in my book

 

Inbox Zero - what do you think?

"the psychological stress, however minor, of all those nagging things that may potentially require action sitting in your inbox can build up"

 In a recent article entitled Open question: What's the point of inbox zero? the author (who admitted to over 10,000 emails in his inbox) asked for readers to say what they thought about the idea.  We've published a selection below:

 

• I usually try to get down to "inbox 10" every other week or so. I don't care about zero, but I care that the number is small enough that I can see it on one screen and know what is in there

• I think there's some cognitive benefit - not seeing "914 Unread" in bold face upon log in subtracts some inherent dismay

• Inbox zero everyday, and real time if possible

• I don't follow any particular fad, but I do try to keep my inboxes empty -- if I leave a read message in an inbox, it's because the message is critical

• I can say that those few times when it was down to zero I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. That, I believe, is ultimately what the concept is for - the psychological stress, however minor, of all those nagging things that may potentially require action sitting in your inbox can build up.

• Inbox zero doesn't mean you read every email but you must act on 

• I strive for not only email zero, but twitter, IM, BBM, Voice Mail, and SMS zero. Not only to have zero waiting, but to have processed each message in some way

• I keep all my mails in the inbox. They form a chronological record of (most) activities I undertake; and when it's time to change to a new e-mail system/account/new PC it's so much easer this way.

• I have multiple filters in place so the only mail that makes it to my inbox is generally fairly important mail

 

We thought this was a great representation of the different ways people handle the volume of incoming email.  It suggests to us that the system used has to be smart enough to handle different personality types and enable each of them not to feel that "dismay" on seeing a large amount of unprocessed work but also to handle the emails coming in an effective and efficient manner.

All of this thinking we've put into Unified Inbox.  You can sign up for release information here.

Do you feel these comments accurately reflect your incoming message experience - or is there another way of looking at it?

 

Email overload - is it possible to defeat it?

 "e-chaos...costing us time and money"

So starts a recent article from the The Globe and Mail.  The article entitled Beat e-chaos once and for all is part of a series on organizing your digital life.

We like the reference to the calculator that allows you to see calculate the value of these inefficient practices. Be warned  - it adds up!  

While this article tends to focus on good practice for filing and setting up automation to help you deal with volume, we think some of the best insights come in the comments section where people talk about the manner in which they work through their emails.  The most important (in our opinion) being dealing with email in batches.  It's the mental processing time to start working on emails that adds up during the day.  Deal with that and you've gained yourself several sushi dinners! (see calculator reference above).

Unified Inbox (click here to sign-up for release information) includes many tools to help you get control of email overload - in order to stop overload and start living!