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Surviving Overwhelm: Using technology to make your life easier (not harder)

by on January 25, 2010

"The internet will not listen to reason" written in chalk on a concrete pillar.

Photo by: altemark / cc 2.0

Now that I’ve talked about staying productive and sane at work when you’re feeling overwhelmed, I want to spend some time focusing on the technology aspects of this problem. Specifically, how you can use technology to make your life easier (not harder!).

The blessing (and curse) of technology

Technology enables us to consume vaster and vaster quantities of information at an ever-increasing pace. We no longer rely on the local newspaper or the national networks to provide us with our news – now we can cobble together our own 24 hr news stream. We can reach beyond our neighborhood, our family, and our workplace to form communities with like-minded individuals all over the world. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed, the last thing you need is *more*.

You need less technology to make you feel more connected.

(Are you glimpsing a pattern here?)

Start by cleaning house

Do you notice yourself automatically archiving or deleting messages (email, newsletters, RSS feeds) from certain people/organizations? Here’s a novel idea… stop archiving or deleting and start unsubscribing. Trust me. Spend 30 minutes to an hour and really clean out your email(s) and feed reader, you’ll be glad you did.

Now, do the same thing for Facebook. And Twitter. And LinkedIn. And your address book.

(If you’re feeling anxious about this, then back up your information. Trust me, that Facebook fan page for your favorite breakfast cereal will still be there when you come back.)

Pare down your information stream so that everything you receive is something you want. Messages from your (real) friends. Discounts on stuff that you *want* to buy.

Use good tools.

Tools that are (often, but not always) single function, well designed, and easy to use. For me, this includes:

Sure, I can write an article in Microsoft Word, but why would I when I can generate the same content in a distraction free environment (DarkRoom) in a file that’s 1/10th the size and readable by any word processing tool (.txt)? I’ve switched my online bookmarking from Delicious to Pinboard because now I can bookmark a page with one click.

Spend the time learning the tools and creating your custom toolkit, then let the rest go.

Where will you start today? Which technology “room” will get the clean sweep? What tools will fall out of (or go into) your streamlined toolkit?

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Surviving Overwhelm: Staying productive and sane at work

by on January 22, 2010

Woman with computer and papers flying around her

Photo by: anasantos / CC BY-ND 2.0

We all go through times in our lives where we’re just overwhelmed. We’re stressed and tired. We struggle to make decisions. We want to move forward, but just can’t seem to do so. Here are some lessons I’ve learned (and had reinforced over the past few months) to help get through these tough times.

Staying productive and sane at work

I am always amazed at how little “work” goes on at most companies throughout the day. Sure, you can fill up your daily quota of 8-10 hours on the job, but how much of that time was spent a) checking your email, b) chatting with co-workers, c) online surfing/shopping/banking, etc… None of these activities are inherently bad and, many times, they’re what make your work day enjoyable. However, when you feel like you only have 10% brainpower to apply today, do you really want to spend that on TPS reports?

My recommendation?

Do less work, better.

Can you reduce the volume or type of stuff that trickles down to you? Could you simplify your email inbox so that most of the messages are from people you want to hear from about topics you want to hear about? Could you delegate some tasks to an assistant / colleague / family member? What would happen if you just ignored it (at least for a little while)?

And, once you’ve managed to do *less* work, how can you do what remains even *better*? Can you think one or two steps beyond your task and consider it as it relates to the root problem? Or instead of participating in an email firestorm of single word/sentence/paragraph messages, can you take the time to stop, gather all of the data, summarize the issues and solutions, and then propose way forward?

What do you think? What steps will you take today to help you do less work, better?

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