Old Problem, Smarter Tools

Information Overload

A few thoughts on a subject that is old and yet most of us still struggle with each day. Many of us are bombarded with huge amounts of information. Some of this information is an intricate part of our jobs while other is generated by our own efforts to remain current in our career fields or knowledgeable in our primary areas of interest. My normal routine is to start the day filtering through a hundred plus e-mails, then checking a half dozen voice-mails before beginning to visit selected sites to catch up on any relevant news. I then repeat this information scan process many times during the day. As long as my scans are regular, without too large a time interval between them, I can manage the information flow. When this situation threatens to cascade out of control, often one of the first efforts for improvement is to adopt technology (Blackberries, WiFi, etc.) that will allow a greater degree of connectivity. This is the equivalent of working extra hours in a manufacturing process. While adding hours will equal higher production (you can scan and filter more e-mails), it doesn’t guaranteed higher efficiency. This situation has grown worst now that broadband and the Internet has become such a part of out lives. A somewhat dated but still true article in InfoWorld stated this situation as:

"The IT professionals that I'm talking about are all complaining that it's worse than ever because we're all on Internet time. The compressed time for decision-making is putting more demands than ever on our time," says Wayne Cascio, a professor of management at the University of Colorado, in Denver. The Web has presented users with huge amounts of information, and some may feel they will miss something if they do not review all available data before making a decision, Cascio says. But professionals need to recognize that they will not have every bit of information available. "The key decision is: When do I have enough?" Cascio says.

We must also decide what data we need. We each filter information trying to eliminate data that is not important or relevant to our current needs. In some part our efficiency may depend upon where we do this filtering. A standard method is to use our standard email, browser, and news feed clients to collect all the information from the sources available or relevant. Spam or junk data will be eliminated for the most part. We then can manually filter those items into the proper channels to be discarded, used, or saved for later. This filtering process can be made highly effective by utilizing proper methods, procedures, and tools. Getting Things Done (GTD) is one of these process tools.

With the advent of smarter applications there may be a better way to do some automatic sorting and filtering. For example in Apple’s OS X (Tiger), they have introduced Smart Folders and Spotlight. This gives us some capability to automatically pre-filter information. Smart Folders contains documents grouped together based on search criteria that you define instead of their physical location. Smart Folders fundamentally change the way you organize your data because now a file can literally be in multiple Smart Folders at once without duplicating or moving the underlying file. Smart Folders automatically update in real time when you add or remove documents. Apple’s Mail client also includes Smart Mailboxes that can automatically sort and filter your incoming mail bases upon predefined criteria.

Apple’s Spotlight application is a system wide search tool that provides new search functions that allow you to find data in ways you’ve never been able to before. In the Spotlight menu bar search field, you can add descriptive and explanatory terms to your search. Also, in addition to searching on traditional file properties, such as name, text content or file extension, you can use new keywords such as “Document,” “Image” or “Movie” to indicate the kind of file you’re looking for. You can even indicate relative time periods using convenient keywords such as “Today,” “Yesterday” and “Last Week.” Spotlight also can search Apple’s mail client. I

n addition many OS X knowledge/information/media management applications are taking advantage of this OS capability. DEVONthink with its smart groups and Tinderbox with its agents are two that come to mind. Both also import or gather information from many sources including directly from the Internet. I’m sure future development will improve further on these capabilities. Time planning and implementing best practices using these new smart capabilities can result in real benefits. I’m in the process of revamping my own information work flow and will have a follow-up post shortly.

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