In This Edition:
1. The Year Almost Gone
2. Information Overload: Relentless But Manageable
3. "Information Explosion" Has No Meaning
4. You Call the Shots
4. Book Worth a Look
6. Parting Thought
The Year Almost Gone
Today, everyone seems so overloaded and overwhelmed. Considering everything
written on time management, how can this be so? Here's a viewpoint you might
consider: mine!
Information Overload: Relentless But Manageable
Before he was 24, your grandfather probably acquired enough
knowledge or training to make a good living for his whole life. Such a deal
is not available to you. The speed at which new information and data are
developed and disseminated transcends your ability to keep pace. Worse,
what you needed yesterday may have little or no value today.
The volume of new knowledge published in every field is enormous and
exceeds anyone's ability to keep pace. Everyone today fears that they are
under-informed.
* In its 140th year, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. added
942,000 items to its collections!
* Even our language keeps expanding. Since 1966, the English language
has gained more than 66,000 words -- equal to half or more of the words in most other
languages.
"Information Explosion" Has No Meaning
The discharge of information spewing forth since the phrase
"information explosion" was first coined dwarfs the original meaning. Within a
few years, half of our technical knowledge will have been replaced.
Every other page in all the texts on AIDS, biomass, chemical
dependency, diet, electronic funds transfer, fire retardation, gynecology,
hydrogen fission, immunology, jet propulsion, kinetics, linear motion,
meteorology, novas, obstetrics, pituitary functioning, quasars, relativity,
sonar, telemetry, uranium, viruses, wellness, x-rays, yacht racing, and
zoology, will be rewritten.
Information can only become knowledge when it's applied. Before you
can absorb and apply yesterday's intake, however, the explosion of new
information floods your receptive capacity. Such constant exposure to the
daily information and media shower leaves each of us incapable of ingesting,
synthesizing, or applying the data before tomorrow's shower.
The eruption of information renders us over-stimulated. The more
information you try to ingest, the faster the "clock races," and your sense
of breathing space is strained.
More News, More Information
Too much information violates our senses and even becomes harmful. As
you receive more information, you experience stress, anxiety, and even
helplessness. Your perception of breathing space is adversely and directly
influenced by the more news, informations and details that you ingest, or
believe you have to ingest.
- In 1302, the Sorbonne Library in Paris housed 1,338 books, most
handwritten, representing nearly all of humankind's accumulated knowledge
spanning a few thousand years.
- Worldwide, at least 730,000 books are published each year -- more
than 2,000 a day.
- One edition of the Sunday New York Times contains more information
items
than the typical adult in 1904 was exposed to during his entire life.
- More than 1,000 new magazines were launched in the U.S. in the last
two years, and within two years, most of them will fail.
- There are more than ten times the number of radio stations today
than when televison was first introduced.
- All told, more books and articles are published in a day than you
could comfortably read in the rest of your life.
Far too many legislators, regulators, and others entrusted to devise
the rules which guide the course of society, take shelter in the information
overglut by intentionally adding to it. We are saddled with 28-page laws
that could be stated in two pages, and regulations that contradict
themselves every fourth page.
You Call the Shots
As yet, few people are wise information consumers. Curiously, there
is only one party who controls the volume, rate, and frequency of
information that you're exposed to. That person is you. The notion of
"keeping up" is illusory, self-defeating, frustrating, and harmful. The
sooner you give it up the better you'll feel.
In ten or twelve years, smart homes with computers built into the
walls will become affordable. Such computers will respond to voice
commands, offer a random-access data base, provide instant simulation via
artificial reality, and free us to effectively use information, not be
abused by it.
For now, we're stuck in the mire of the over-information era, subject
to the daily overglut. The best hope to hold off the din is to recognize
all of its disguises. If we cannot apply, reflect upon, or effectively store
information, then, more than ever, we need to guard against being deluded with
excess data.
Make Information Choices
You can become your own information switchboard. Turn off your
information receptors for several hours each day. Do not let new
information invade your being if it doesn't promise immediate benefits to
you, your family, your community, or any area of your life -- especially if
it comes after hours.
Choose to acquire knowledge that supports or interests you, not that
you happen to ingest, or think you have to ingest.
Book Worth a Look
In Praise of Slowness: How a World Wide Movement Is Challenging the
Cult of Speed by Carl Honare (Harper SF, 2004).
Honare says that the "slow philosophy" can be summed up in a single
word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, be slow when
slowness is called for. Seek to live at what musicians call tempo giusto -
the right speed. In Praise of Slowness documents how a creeping "slow
revolution" in everything from food to medicine is making the case for
deceleration in our everyday lives.
Parting Thought
Success equals a happy home life, financial security, abundant
health, and the ability to stand for issues you believe to be important.
