People today are overwhelmed with information. Every meeting we attend tends to generate even more information. With the number of topics discussed daily, we struggle most of the time with defining what and how to do.
According to J.J. Lewis, an American researcher in the field of productivity, some sixty-four percent of people struggle with taking the correct information with them, and other seventy-one percent of his respondents struggle with working effectively with the information they collect. And the flow of information doesn’t stop. We receive it throughout our working day, in meetings with friends and relatives, in communities we participate in, etc. With all this flow of information, dealing effectively with it becomes more challenging daily.
With the whole flow of information, learning how to deal with the information received has become not recommended but a mandatory skill.
In this overwhelming reality, people still try to learn how to make decisions instead of how to organize the information received so that the decision-making process has the correct energizer for everyone.
Many tools help us organize the information we get visually, but they are still only tools. No one teaches us how to use them effectively, so the information flow and the quantity we need for every decision are in the right direction. The world is changing, but how people organize themselves hasn’t changed much. The nature of personal organization, no matter the economic or technological advancement, has stayed the same in principles and mindset.
For example, I have used different tools to organize the information I receive because I am a huge fan of experimenting with various devices. Ultimately, I stopped myself by using the simple Microsoft One Note and Microsoft To-Do and dividing my information flow into four different streams.
General notes
Everyone must start from somewhere. And why not have a general directory with all the information you receive? It is something like a storage place. You write in data from different streams to have it in one place. Only doing that saves more than ten percent of the time you invest in collecting and distributing information. When seeing it in one place, the information starts to reorder itself in your head in the most valuable and practical way. The general notes storage is like a big bucket where you can always put your hand in, take something, and move it through the next steps of the information organization process.
Personal To-Do’s
I wouldn’t say I like world prioritization. It is weak and overused. Most people who use it do not understand it. They implement some systems for information organizations, follow a trendy approach, or install a modern tool, and that’s it. Looking at the information and finding your personal To-Do differs from prioritizing the information you have received. It is more like choosing what you will be engaged in. Personal to-dos do not minimize the need for organizing information but clarify topics and information flows more clearly. At the same time, we focus on things that will be expected from us. These things are the ones we engage with and put on our agenda for the time ahead. Creating a personal to-do list is a crucial step in the process of how to manage and deal with information effectively.
Question about information
No one knows it all. And information flows as a chain of small boxes. Each box has content; in most cases, this content is only partially understandable for the doer. For example, if you talk to an executive, they share information on something that needs to be done, but you understand only part of it. What will you do? To my surprise, when asked this question, more than two hundred and eighty-five people answered that they would be quiet and try to figure out what to do after the meeting. And there is no more wrong approach than that. We all need clarification on whether the information looks obvious. Asking questions for clarification and/or confirmation of what the individual has heard is not a sign of weakness and low IQ but a sign of high engagement with the final result that has to be achieved. The list of questions should be filled based on what a person has put on their personal To-Do list. With it, the individual contributor can lower stress and, at the same time, plan for success.
Action items for others
The information flow we all receive is intensive and, at the same time, extensive. How we manage it affects our internal balance, emotions, and psychological stability. From the whole list of information growing daily, we need to make choices. And often, the option is to do it on our own or give it to someone else. The focus on what our to-do shapes our information list a little bit, but to keep our internal balance, we need to consider how it will be dealt with the other part of the information that stays out of our sight. While part of this information may be weak and not need our attention, it may be necessary for someone else in our environment or to create engagement in other people’s heads. Creating action items for others from the information bucket benefits the individual and others. At the same time, it works toward distributing the most impactful part of the information in the hands of the strongest performers.
Now, the question that everyone asks themselves is: How do we organize this information?
Well, the answer is That it will be more convenient for you. Everyone has their comfortable way—some people use quadrants, others use cards, a third group creates buckets, and people like me start different pages in a notes app.
There is no right or wrong way to organize information. The only principle to do it is how convenient it is to you and how much time your approach saves and moves to the action part of the process.
Now: “Are you ready to reorganize yourself and your information bucket for success?”
The Human place - a path from you to yourself 