Simple System To Manage Information Overload
We consume too much information in the age of social media, especially short-form content. If you use Twitter, you’re bombarded with niche content you just can’t ignore. So you save those videos and bookmark those posts for future reference. The saved list grows so large that it becomes a problem of its own. Worse, when you want to dive into a niche topic, you no longer remember which resource you saved for that exact purpose.
As someone who loves organizing information, I believe in building an index for your own use — nothing too complicated like a Notion template. A simple notes app will do, or a Google Doc if you want to be more elaborate. I’ve created a note listing books I want to read, with a few words about why I find each one interesting. I have a separate note for YouTube videos and another for movies I should watch.
The next time I’m looking for something to read, I force myself to pick from that list. I don’t wander anywhere else — especially not Goodreads or Twitter — until I’ve worked through my collection of saved recommendations. Tiago Forte has an elaborate system for organizing notes and ideas to build your life around them, but I’m not interested in living inside a notes app, so I keep it simple.
One might argue that bookmarks or saved lists do exactly this, so why save things separately in a notes app? Because when you organize your list into neat categories within one app, you’re forced to consolidate information from various sources. You see how much you’ve been hoarding and whether you really need all that information.
Build your own library of recommendations. You’ll learn what kind of recommendations align with your interests. When something isn’t as interesting as you thought it would be, you’ll also learn that certain things are just hype and should be taken with a grain of salt. But most importantly, you’ll have your own niche recommendation engine, which means you’ll never waste time consuming content that doesn’t genuinely pique your curiosity.
And isn’t that the whole point?