Information Overload

It’s all too much.

I mentally repeat this statement almost every day. TOO MUCH

And yet, in just writing the above few sentences, I’ve clicked away from this screen 10 times. I’ve thought of 5 ideas for blog pieces. I sometimes wonder if that lack of focus, that constant movement, has developed as a response to the ridiculous amount of constant information thrown at us. This post has been in my drafts for months as I’ve started and stopped it.

It feels self-inflicted. I made the choice to create Facebook and Twitter and Instagram accounts. I choose to open up the apps or websites every day. I choose to click on articles to read or videos to watch. But opting out also feels like an impossibility - social media is how I keep up with friends and what’s going on in the world. It provides not only entertainment, but also knowledge. So how do we get anything done?

Instead of bouncing between apps and websites, I started writing everything down in a physical planner. The act of writing things down helps me a lot, and it helps me organize my plans so instead of doing everything at once I can take them once at a time. Focusing on physical things, whether hardware products, reading books, or cooking, tends to help me concentrate.

Consolidating my social media platforms is another part. I deactivated my Facebook account, unfollowed the vast majority of accounts, and limited my Instagram and Twitter overall account time. I still spend too much time scrolling through Twitter, but just these small changes have helped improve my experience online.

These are early solutions, ones that I still struggle with on a day to day basis. I hope to keep figuring out how to stay engaged in my work and find a balance between being online and getting things done.