Filter Information Going Into Your Brain

Sat, Nov 14, 2009

Digital Anthropology, Philosophy, Tech

Filter Information Going Into Your Brain

There is an overabundance of information: I call this information overload.  I used to subscribe to a lot of feeds.  Now I’ve narrowed it down to a few.  (Find them here.)

Information is beautiful. But only if you know how to handle it.  If you can’t, you’re gonna get the wind knocked out of you and become inundated, lazy, inefficient, and stupid.  Yes, stupid.

You know that saying “shit in, shit out”?

•    Put bad data in, get bad data and results out.
•    Put bad food in you, get fat.
•    Put toxins in you, get lung cancer.
•    Put bad information in your brain, get bad information out.

There is so much to read on the web.  Do yourself a favor and filter it.

Why?  I thought the more the merrier?

No, you gluttonous freak.  Wrong.

Control your information into take to
•    Increase efficiently
•    Free up time by not reading crap
•    Capitalize on your innovation by reading things that spark creativity
•    Watch less, read less.  Do more, create more.

What are you doing reading this?

Get back to work.

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  • There is such an allure to reading as many feeds, posts and articles as you can. It makes you feel like you're approaching omniscience.
    But, I think this is not just a matter of putting bad data in. This info overload reminds me of what Nassim Nicholas Taleb says about how reading the news can make you less aware of what's really happening in the world. Today's report (or this hour's report) goes one way, then the other way. A way to deal with the overload is to put less emphasis on the current reports and read mostly the old works that sum up what happened. That's what I'm trying to do.
  • I understand what you're saying here. That by reading the hourly or even daily news, we're only getting the micro view, and not the macro picture of what is really happening. I completely agree with you (and Nassim) on this approach. You know all those "Here are my predictions for 2010" articles going around? A bunch of them I scheduled with Hootsuite to tweet out in the last week of December 2010, to see if they really held true. What is more interesting to me than the actual predications are the ensuing results.
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