Letting Go of Excess

Consider your information intake vehicles and determine how you can pare down. On basic level, I suggest opening your mail over the waste basket; it's much easier to throw things
out with the waste basket below you.

If you receive a magazine or journal, go through it rapidly and take out the articles or items that look like they'll be of interest. Recycle the rest of the publication. Often, there's no need to hang on to the back issues of a publication. Much of the information is also on-line. In general pare down what you receive to only what you need -- reduce the volume as quickly and easily as possible.

Manage Info with Tickler Files

If you're overwhelmed by what crosses your desk, it's worth considering the benefits of having a file folder for each month of the year and a file folder for each day of the month. This idea, the "tickler file," sytem has been in practice for years.

Create a file for days 1-31 of the month, and place it at the front of one of your file drawers. Behind that, have a file for each month of the year. If it's the second day of the month, for example, but you receive something that you won't need to deal with until the 15th, then put it in the file for, say, the 13th to allow yourself some slack. If anything comes in that you don't need to handle now, put it in your tickler file. This yields some immediate benefits. It keeps your desk clear and eliminates a lot of worry about where things go.

As the days and months go by, you continually take files that were in front and put them in the back. Once you get this system in place, you'll find that many of the things you file may not need to be acted on later. The benefits of this system are immediate.

Pare Down the Piles

Into every career and life some rain must fall and, apparently, some piles will accumulate be they stacks of mail, reports, survey forms, seminar announcements, catalogs, etc. A basic step in managing information overload is to confront the piles head-on with a take-no-prisoners attitude. If you haven't noticed already, such piles can accumulate in a hurry. A couple of file folders, issues of a magazine, some office memos, something you clipped from the newspaper, a single day's worth of mail, some fliers left by your door, and POOF, you've got a pile!

Beware of Killer Piles – Piles, by their nature, tend to represent complexity and unfinished
business. Each pile in your visual field, i.e., that you encounter in any given day, registers in your brain, if only for a pico second at a time, as more stuff that you haven't really dealt with. Fortunately, there are ways to handle the ad hoc piles materializing a little too frequently in your life:

* Dismantle piles with relative grace. Have available a pen, some file folders, paper clips, rubber bands and a stapler. Now you're ready to collect everything on your desk or table or elsewhere that needs, or you suspect may need, attention. Stack all of it in front of you in a temporary pile. If the pile is high, your incentive to do so may be that much greater. In 30 minutes or less, you're going to dismantle and reallocate this simplicity-threatening pile. Allocate each item to one of four locations – an important pile, an urgent pile, an interesting pile, or the recycling bin, where most items will go.

* Allocate to the best of your knowledge. If an item is urgent and important, place it in the important pile near the top. If it's simply urgent, place it in the appropriate pile. If you are unsure of any particular item, place it at the bottom of the large stack, but only do so once for each item. On the second encounter, you have to classify it. In thirty minutes or less, the voluminous pile should be gone, and you're left with three semi-neat tiny piles. Rank the items and then re-arrange them in each pile. Downgrade or toss anything you can. You're left with three smaller, more precisely arranged piles, important, urgent, and interesting.

* Get meaner and leaner. What else can you chuck? What can be combined, ignored, delayed, delegated, done in multiples, armed-out, automated, systemized, or used for kindling? The more items you can downgrade to interesting, the farther ahead you'll be because you can deal with these items when you feel like it.

* With what's left, tackle items one by one. After you've identified the most important project or task at the top of the important folder, begin working on it. If you can't complete it, proceed with it as far as you can go. Then place it back in the folder, either on top or where you determine it now belongs. Similarly, begin on the next most important item and proceed
as far as you can go.

Informed but not Overwhelmed

How can you stayed informed without being overwhelmed?

* Choose to acquire knowledge that supports or interests you, not what you simply happen to ingest, or think you have to ingest.

* Look for broad-based patterns and trends, as opposed to quickly disappearing fads and forgettable trivia.

* Learn to delegate some of your reading to your most junior staff. After only 15 minutes of instruction and armed with a list of key words, they will be able to rather easily identify articles of interest to you.

* Prune your files regularly and ruthlessly. Constantly throw out what does not support you.

Reduce the Volume of Items

When you continually seek to reduce the volume of items you’ve retained, you have a better chance of managing information overload:

Rather than keeping a five-page report, retain only the single page that you actually need. Rather than retaining an entire page, clip the paragraph, address and phone number, or key item of information that you actually need, and chuck the rest of the page. With the small clipping or subsection of page you've retained, tape it to a single page, perhaps one that contains other relevant retained tidbits. Always strive to retain only the bare minimum information that you believe is necessary. Strive to reduce the size/weight/volume of the pile.

Reexamine everything in the pile once again. Even after you've pared down a particular pile to a smaller, more concise pile, review it with the notion "what am I continuing to retain that adds to little or nothing?" Perhaps you are already familiar with the issue an item represents and don't need to retain printed information relating to it.

Fasten together like items. When you've pared down your piles to the lowest possible volume and gotten them into mean, lean, slim, trim shape, keep like items together, using a stapler, paper clip, or rubber band. A paper clip assembling a packet of papers works best for temporary assemblage.

In general, the more like items you can fasten together, the easier it will be for you to find any particular item that you need!

Conquer Your Filing Cabinets

Studies show that 80% of the items in a typical file cabinet are never used again! That means you could pare down at least 50 percent of what you're retaining. You don't even need to go that far, however; try to pare down 20 percent.

Why do you need to pare down? In a society that throws information at us at an ever-increasing rate, it's a given that more is coming. Condition your mind that this is so.

Harness Social Complexity

Business Week: At 20 large U.S. banks, the cost of complying with U.S. laws and regulations grew 159 percent from 2001 to 2006, far faster than profit growth, an industry survey found. It costs the average big bank $83.5 million a year to keep up with Surbanes-Oxley, the Patriot Act, and other laws.

Given this reality, each of us needs to build greater "administration" time and effort into our plans. Society inherently grows more complex all the time. Our challenge is to harness that complexity and convert it to a competitive advantage.

Clean My Mailbox

Check out www.cleanmymailbox.com/whitelist.html which offers a "free tool to generate specific instructions on how to whitelist your publication(s) within a variety of popular fitering solutions in use today."

By filling in and submitting a form they supply, and you'll be presented with the custom HTML code to use in developing your own customized Whitelisting Instructions web page.

Break Free, Create Space

When you break free of the clutter syndrome which is endemic to 20th century man and woman, and you both physically and figuratively create open spaces in your life, you gain an enhanced perception of more time in your life. I advocate looking at your shelves and determining which books you can give away. Ask yourself who would appreciate receiving this as a gift. If you can't think of anyone, identify schools, libraries, hospitals, and retirement homes that might appreciate such gifts.

Information is Stored in Spaces

It's important to understand that you control the spaces in your life, because information is stored in spaces--tables, shelves, desks, disks, hard drives, web sites, etc. If your desk is a mess right now, strewn high with piles that are growing higher, remember you're the one who controls that space, as well as your filing cabinet, your shelves, the top of your dining room table, your kitchen counter, your glove compartment, or your back seat. You are the one controlling your space, and this acknowledgment will help you to stay in control of your information.

A Game Plan for Today

You need a game plan for your day, and for your week. Otherwise you'll allocate your time according to whatever information happens to land on your desk or whatever communications begs for your attention. As such, other people's actions will determine your priorities. And you will find yourself making the fatal mistake of dealing primarily with problems rather than opportunities.

Jeff's MICO Presentation

The benefits you will receive from attending Jeff Davidson's presentation on Managing Information and Communication Overload:

[ ] maintain a clear desk
[ ] become better able manage all email files
[ ] have more productive workdays, day in and day out
[ ] manage incoming information to prevent information overload
[ ] minimize the deluge of information and communication from all directions
[ ] establish information management standards and procedures

[ ] stay more focused, more often
[ ] determine if you're a meglomaniac or infomaniac
[ ] organize your files, folders, documents, papers, and everything in between
[ ] manage your email inbin like a pro
[ ] quickly assess and allocate information received via paper, e-mail, voice mail
[ ] make faster, guilt-free decisions on what to retain and what to recycle or toss

[ ] adopt a potent filing system that's fast, easy, and rewarding
[ ] have more energy at the end of the workday
[ ] more easily share vital information with bosses, co-workers, or staff
[ ] use your copier, printer, scanner, and computer to diminish paper clutter
[ ] send faxes by fax/modem to eliminate paper handing on your end
[ ] employ scanning when it help to resolve your paper glut

[ ] avoid storing information in places where you'll "lose" it
[ ] have a more harmonious relationship among office staff
[ ] feel better about your job, career, and company
[ ] safeguard your office environment
[ ] be able to quickly peruse any book and find what you can use
[ ] stay on top of a several projects at once

[ ] save time by avoiding misdirection
[ ] gain a clear idea of what publications to receive and which not to receive
[ ] learn practical tips for staying off of junk mail and spam lists
[ ] break down semi-permanent piles
[ ] reclaim your desktop and other flat surfaces
[ ] vanquish the information glut, and keep it down to a dull roar

[ ] stay abreast of the latest information management tools
[ ] achieve clarity of thought
[ ] learn how to finish work on time
[ ] get your name off of junk mail lists
[ ] prevent piles and files from building up in the first place
[ ] coordinate on-line, on-disk and hard copy files