Don't let information overload control you.

I repeatedly hear how people have too much information coming at them. How do they decide what to read, will they be missing out on really important information if they delete an email, what if a colleague asks how they liked their latest newsletter, and so on.

Remember that you have total control over the information you're receiving. When you open an email, you call the shots: read, file away, or delete. It shouldn't get anymore complicated than that. Get a handle on your information overload by following any or all of these tips:

• Unsubscribe to newsletters you don't read. If you haven't bothered to open the past 6 issues, then how interested are you in the information anyway?

• Create folders for your subscriptions and have the issues filtered directly to the appropriate folder.

• Instead of subscribing to the newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and check out the thread of information that interest you.

• Delete any emails that don't apply to you, or share it with someone, being very mindful that you're not adding to the info overload.

Your sending habits

When you are on the sending end of the information, be mindful to:

• Have a table of contents for quick reference
• List all of the permanent information at the top of the message, with links.
• Be sure the information is concise
• Ask friends and colleauges how they process their information and try to design your messages with their comments in mind.  
  

A personal note

Personally, I only subscribe to two email newsletters and they are both from the Harvard Business Review. Their information is always concise, meaningful and includes links to related HBR articles and it's a model I try to follow. For anything else, I subscribe to RSS feeds or go directly to my favorite sites - that's what bookmarks are for afterall.

Speaking of bookmarks, managing them will be the next quick tip topic.

If you have comments to share or have topics you want to read about, please let me know. I'd love to hear from you!