Managing Information Overload is without doubt one of the most important skills an individual can develop today.

With the massive increase in information availability, and with it bombarding us every day, we see people and organisations struggling to maintain their performance as they get weighed down.

The impact on the individual is stress, overwork, loss of confidence and potentially worse.  For organisations the impact is multiplied as their people suffer, resulting in lower productivity and poor performance.

To address this action needs to be taken to understand what is involved in Managing Information Overload and then actually doing something about it.

It begins with having a clear Purpose and Focus on what you want to achieve in long, medium and short term, because without this clarity you won’t know what information to seek out, and more importantly to screen out.

Once you know where you are headed you can then effectively follow the four stages of managing information:

1.  Getting information in (Speed Reading and beyond)

2.  Organising and adapting that information to suit your purpose (Mind Mapping and more)

3.  Retaining and recalling the information you’ve organised (Principles of improved memory and the Most Important Graph in the World)

4.  Applying what you have learnt in new and creative ways (Critical and creative thinking to develop ideas and solutions you want)

And underlaying these stages of learning there are also the important aspects of managing our learning.  This entails an appreciation of:

  • iBrain or harnessing your Outboard Mind – which refers to the digital media being used to access information, including the internet, Google, iPads, Social Media sites etc
  • The Mind/Body connection, which says healthy mind = healthy body – healthy body = healthy mind.
  • Time and life management to ensure more productive thinking on the things that really matter.

We’ve written a full article on this which you can down her Managing Information Overload White Paper 2012.

And to help address the challenge of information overload Mindwerx has created a number of free eCourses on skills such as Speed Reading, Mind Mapping and SIx Thinking Hats.  These are free to subscribe to and can be accessed here. Have a look and let us know what you think.  We believe they will help you Manage Information Overload better.

And of course we have all the Skills Development programs available for organisations seeking to enhance the creativity and learning potential of your people.  Email us at team@mindwerx.com to get more information.

Bill