The liberating realization about information overload

A recurring topic in personal productivity is focus and distractions.

It’s something that subscribers have told me time and again is important:

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Time Management (6)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Productivity Tools & Apps (13)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Project Management (2)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Note Taking / PKMS (2)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Goal Setting / Achieving (4)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Focus / Eliminate Distractions (10)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (3)

While we all love hearing about the newest tools and the best ways to get the most out of them, focusing and eliminating distractions is a clear second place issue.

So let’s talk about a specific type of overwhelm - content.

Wait, isn’t this content too?

As a newsletter writer and someone that is involved in email with a lot of businesses, it seemed a little ironic to be writing about content overwhelm…

I quickly got over it - I like what I share and I know that even the very top newsletters of all time don’t get anywhere near a 100% open rate.

Why?

We have so much going on and it isn’t helpful to expect yourself to keep up with 100% of the content out there, even from one single source.

Also, not everything will be super important to your specific needs.

That’s OK.

What isn’t OK is starting to feel like you have to see it all.

That you have to continuously stay on top of every source of information or you’ll…miss out, get behind, somehow lose out.

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What We Can Do

The best analogy I’ve heard for how you can deal with yourself and content - by the way, when I say “content” I mean newsletters, articles, emails with attachments from that uncle, videos, etc - is to imagine it as a stream of water.

You can’t drink a stream. Even a small one. Please don’t try to.

What you can do is realize that the stream will keep flowing and there will be more great parts of the stream available when you decide to dip in.

Let it “flow past” you - and start internalizing this as a relationship so that you don’t always get FOMO if you haven’t kept up on your article reading.

One practical way I do this, as a user of Readwise Reader, is to archive all articles that I won’t read by the end of the day each week on Monday.

I can still go find the articles I archive, if they turn out to be needed.

But this lets the stream keep flowing and I can pluck out the article or two that really catches my attention while not worrying about the rest.

If you’re not sure about this whole idea, consider this quote from Oliver Burkeman on the topic:

One quick question 👋

I love hearing from readers, and I’m always happy to hear feedback from active subscribers. How am I doing with the Productivity Academy newsletter? Is there any content you’d like to see more or less of? Which parts of the newsletter (or articles, or podcast) do you enjoy the most?

Hit reply and say hello, happy to hear from you!

P.S. Looking for resources to improve your productivity? Check out the tools I use right here.