Reducing Information Anxiety

by Robertt Young

Recently, while talking to my colleague Jennifer, the topic of different ways to manage and organize information came up. As we were discussing categories and why we use them, I was reminded of a book by Richard Saul Wurman titled Information Anxiety.

Information Anxiety notes that there are five ways to organize information:

1. Alphabet: A dictionary is an example of information organized alphabetically.
2. Location: Location is a natural way of organizing data with important relationships or connections to other data e.g.; medical students often use books that organize information by location of the body: stomach, liver and heart.
3. Continuum: According to Wurman, this means order of magnitude: largest to smallest, most important to least important etc.
4. Time or Calendar: Organize information by time or on a calendar
5. Categories: Categories are a common, reliable tool since they allow similar things to be grouped together by attributes that are considered important in some way. Defining the specific categories is crucial, as they will communicate the designer's prejudices and understandings more easily than any other organization.

Traditional “time management” teaches you to manage information using a calendar or chronologically.

We teach how to manage information categorically. Why do we use categories instead of time to manage information? It’s less work and more rewarding – oh yeah it works!! Here's what I mean, in traditional “time management” courses they teach that:

• 
  You write all the "to-do's" down on today’s calendar you think are most important to be done, whether or not it needs to be that day.
• Then you prioritize those "to-do’s" either numerically 1,2, etc or by ABC* priority (A= high B= less important C=.everything else)
• Then you attack your day working on job 1 or the As, then job 2 or the Bs etc. until completed.

But what happens when someone comes and throws new things on your plate? Or someone comes along and changes the priority of everything you so neatly prioritize?

Here’s what folks who use this method tell us is so frustrating:

• You don’t get to finish the to-do's" you planned to get done.
• All that stuff you didn’t accomplish today gets moved to tomorrow’s calendar.
• Your daily “reward” for completing anything is having to prioritize everything again tomorrow (which is everything we didn’t accomplish today!)

Why not have your calendar show only the Action items that absolutely need to be done today? List everything else as an Action item on your Task List in the correct category. Since categories are specific – you might have categories for Projects or Actions or Calls - then you can see what you want to see when it’s appropriate. If I have all my Actions in one place, I work on what I need when I need it!

Watch for my next installment on the importance of Categories. We know time flies whether we’re having fun or not…so why try to manage it?