How to Consume Information More Efficiently

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As the amount of data that is potentially important to us continues to abound, it'southward now more vital than e'er to exist able to process and swallow it more efficiently. Here are some tactics to help you become more than efficient with your time and information processing.

RSS and keeping upwardly with headlines

If you aren't an RSS user, you should exist. Information technology'due south an excellent manner to become efficient with your fourth dimension and a good mode to get through a bunch of data to find the of import stuff speedily. Only subscribe to sites that inform you directly or entertain you.

Co-ordinate to Clay Johnson in his book "The Information Diet", nosotros should be consuming data that is as close to the source equally possible, then researching if it is something that nosotros demand to know.

This is a good mode to approach the RSS feeds that yous follow. For instance, the tech/gadget sites I follow are The Verge, Engadget, and CNET'southward main feed. This gives me a overnice pool of headlines to browse during the twenty-four hour period. I spend about fifteen minutes every 2 – 3 hours scanning the new headlines. If I meet something I want to follow upward on I star information technology. If it is something that is a longer piece that I want to read, I send it to Instapaper to read later on.

When following up with a starred headline, I volition do a search for the topic and see what some pundits and other outlets are saying most it. Then if I run into something that is worth reading, I volition throw it in Instapaper for after. Also, if I come up across some sort of reference article that I volition want to consult afterward, I transport it to Evernote and archive it.

Afterward in the evening I spend no more than thirty minutes consuming my Instapaper queue. This whole process takes up about 1.25 – one.five hours per solar day.

Clearing out your inbox

Some people think that clearing out your inbox is all well-nigh doing everything that is in your inbox. This isn't the case at all. Yous clear out your inbox to find the piece of work that needs to be washed and then put it in a place that you can practice afterward, throughout your day.

My process is what David Allen suggests:

1. Read the get-go e-mail in your inbox and ask yourself, "is this actionable?"
2. If it is and it will take 2 minutes or less (replying to a elementary question, setting up a quick meeting, etc.) and then practise it. If there is followup to the email, put the sent email in an "@waiting" binder.
3. If information technology is actionable and will accept more than than two minutes, put it in an "@action" folder and track the task in your task awarding.
4. If it is reference, archive information technology away.

This process keeps you up on what you need to do and helps you identify any action you need to take that has come through in the grade of email. I go a lot of email between piece of work, Lifehack, and personal stuff (about 100 emails a twenty-four hour period). Even with that load it still only takes me nearly xv – xxx minutes a solar day to keep up with it.

Social networks, forums, and groups

Keeping up with all of your hundreds of "friends" can be daunting and fifty-fifty annoying. This is one of the reasons that I still don't accept a Facebook business relationship and am yet apprehensive of using things like Google+ to their total extent. I feel that social networking can sometimes be a chip of a time-suck. But, you tin can still be efficient with it.

Only friend and follow people that thing to you. While using Twitter, ane tin can get pretty carried away with their number of followers. It's important to keep them down to a minimum. Just follow people that bring you important information and that keep you entertained. Oh, and of course follow your friends.

Try to treat social networks and groups the same way you lot would email and RSS:

1. Get through the data quickly.
2. Anything that you tin can speedily share or comment on, do it while you are scanning your feeds.
3. Annihilation that will take some time to comment on or create, track it in your chore list and set discrete time during the day to take care of it.

Yous don't take to exist similar a robot with social networks though. There is goose egg at all incorrect with trolling forums, Twitter, and Facebook every and then ofttimes. Just don't brand a habit of it. You've got more important things to do, correct?

Conclusion

Information "overload" is here to stay. There is no stopping information technology. So, rather than be a luddite and unplug completely, use these tips to continue up with what is important to yous and the things that you lot need to get done in a more efficient way. If you follow a routine of combing the information that has made its mode to your life's inbox, you can keep upwards with it and handle it effectively.

(Photograph credit:A engineering science man has images around his head via Shutterstock)

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-to-consume-your-digital-information-more-efficiently.html

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