Surviving in Information Glut

Too much information keeps flowing. In a short span of time the inputs we receive today are enormous, it is virtually impossible to absorb all. Unfortunately I don't think the information is making us any more intelligent, it is just slowing down the reaction time, lowering productivity.

Every time information comes, we get distracted by it, the information sender always packages it in such a manner that we are tempted to look at it. At each instance we need to decide if this information is useful or not, hence atrophying our mind energy, each instance we pay attention to the new information, it clutters and distracts.

I am not saying information is bad but it needs a lot more skilled mind to navigate, to make use of it for increased productivity, for increased intelligence, for better decision making. The mind is however not skilled,  the information by itself has a part in de-skilling it further. The difference in someone winning today will be in the skill to manage the mind.

Few tricks which have worked for me:

1. When you start reading any information, at the instant decide if it is useful or not, if not useful delete it else go ahead and read. The decision has to be within few seconds else you will waste crucial time
2. If you begin to sieve through the information, make a crux map and give it a silent treatment for a minute for mind to organize it
3. Categorize it and store it in a folder from where you can easily retrieve when you need it