Information Overload

by Kirk Miller

Have you heard about the epidemic that’s sweeping the nation? It’s called information overload. It’s really nothing new. But it has crept up on us during the information age and is spreading out of control, like wildfire in a Texas field. Everywhere you turn these days we are being bombarded with information.

We wake up in the morning and immediately rush to get all of the necessary information together before we leave the house for the day. In our cars (if you have not yet decided to give up the radio all together), there’s a continuous influx of more information. All of this while talking on our cell phones and PDA’s. Then we get to work and information really comes at us from all sides, from our peers to our boss to our inbox, voicemail and let’s not forget…our EMAIL !! It is estimated that the average information worker receives over 150 emails per day. On average, each day brings us 200+ decisions to make about all of this information. That’s just during the workday. When we get home, there is mail and other information waiting for us as well. No wonder we have a hard time simply deciding what to make for dinner after a typical day at work. I am exhausted just writing about it.

Last year I attended the first meeting of the Information Overload Research Group (IORG). It was the inaugural meeting of a number of C-level executives from companies like Intel, Morgan Stanley, Xerox and others, along with academic researchers in the area of information overload. This group has, as its focus, begun seriously addressing the issue of information overload in large corporations. Large companies like these are beginning to take a real look at this issue and its effects on the bottom line. It is estimated that it’s costing U.S. companies approximately $65 billion per year. And if you look around, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that information is going down anytime soon.

So the question is, how are you going to deal with it? Do you have a system in place to handle this ever-increasing amount of information coming at you every day? With the EDGE system, you do. The EDGE system allows you to narrow down all these collection points of information to just a few. It empowers you to then clearly make decisions about this information and immediately move it to where it needs to go. Finally, it gives you a best practice methodology to execute and get stuff off your plate, creating a relaxed flow to your workday and a return to sanity. So the only question left is…..do you have the EDGE?