Stop squirrelling information

I'm posting on information overload this week; one of my conference keynote topics, best scheduled at the start of the conference! Why? We're faced with so much information yet we haven’t evolved our abilities to process and cope with it all. We still get overloaded. Daily.

An issue is how we squirrel away information intent on working on it 'later’, reviewing it, keeping it, having it. Think... at a conference where a tonne of information is presented via PowerPoint.

How often have you got your phone out and taken a photo of a slide? We're creating a 'rework' problem though, collecting information we think we may possibly need, perhaps, maybe.

'It looks valuable; I'll capture it.' It’s inefficient and delays the sensemaking task until 'later'. That's yet another thing for 'later'!

Recent research confirms our memories and recall are NOT enhanced by these photos. We’re better off working with the information (listening, reading, thinking, writing) at the time, in the moment, even though it feels good to take photos.

We think we feel calmer capturing the moment, but we're actually adding to the big problem that is our cognitive overload. Forget the photo. Make sense in the moment. 

Know how you get overloaded

I'm posting on cognitive overload this week. We feel overload at conferences or training when we feel 'full', overflowing with information and can't take any more in.

Here's how it happens:

🐞G-r-a-d-u-a-l

This mental overload happens over a long day. You feel like a zombie and the simplest tasks can seem difficult. As the day wears on, you might think the sessions are less interesting or less captivating, but it's usually because we are less able to discriminate and determine what's of value.

🚀Rapid

You can get overloaded in a single presentation or meeting; this is over a shorter period of time; too much information and too high a degree of difficulty (yes, like Olympic divers or gymnasts executing a tricky move!)

Cognitive overload is a common problem in the modern workplace. We're confronted with so much information from so many different sources, and in so many different styles.

It's not going to fix itself ... we'll need to do something about it. The skill is 'cognitive load coping.'

Full to overflowing

This morning I'm keynoting aand opening a conference. It’s a 2-day program, with 3 streams running concurrently, which means there will be about 30 sessions for people to choose from.

Many conferences present us with this choice about what to do, what to attend. As delegates, we're about to be blasted by a firehose of information. The information flow is never ending.

We start the day with high hopes, clear minds and open eyes, ready to capture the insights from presentations and conversations.

But during the day, we hit the wall, full to overflowing and we experience 'the overload'.

To deal with it, we need to manage it. No one will do it for us. We need the skill of 'cognitive load coping' which the Institute for the Future said we'd need about now.

Yet I don’t see enough of it in the workplace to equip people to cope with all the information!

In today’s keynote I :

✅ Show how multitasking at a conference lowers our IQ;

✅ Explain we have a blindness to information, missing key content; and

✅ Share templates and techniques for better cognitive load coping.

This quote below from Seth Godin is a goodie! More on this topic as the week goes on.

Managing the overload

Do we consciously think how we’ll manage the deluge of information we’ll be exposed to today? Or do we just hope for the best?

Yes, we read, think, assess, evaluate and make sense of so much stuff. Every day. And while we’re trying to make sense of the information that’s INCOMING to us, don’t forget we also need to make sense of the information that we’re preparing for others : our OUTGOING.

We can spend too long on how things look - a presentation or report for example - when it may actually be all wordy, with jargon, cliched. That’s hard work for people to make sense of.

As you manage your own cognitive load, be aware you need to help others manage their load too. When preparing information, make it easy for them. If it’s easy - that doesn’t mean simple - if it’s easy, it gets digested, absorbed and, importantly integrated into our learning and understanding.

You'll feel less zombie-ish and more alert if you make conscious cognitive load management one of the ways you go about your day. I’m opening the SIRF Roundtables National Forum with a keynote on this super skill, cognitive load coping.

I’ll share more on cognitive load coping this week.

A deadline is not the only standard

A deadline is not the only standard

I met a team this week who were working on a task and they were stressed about it, working hard, pushing on, staying back late to get the work done to meet a deadline.

It was due 6 days later. The only target or standard they were going for was the date, the deadline. And it seemed they were working as many hours as they could until the date arrived. But something was missing.

We talked about identifying, asking for or clarifying other standards as well as the date, say, the quality required or expected.

How much?

What’s required by the due date?

One page or six?

Some key headings?

Raw data or curated insights?

None of these were known. It was all about the due date. It was full speed ahead, doing whatever they could until time ran out. Other work and priorities they had on fell away.

We worked together on asking clarifying questions so they could gather more information about the expectations and requirements required for any of the work they're doing. It will save them hours/days of unnecessary work and will dramatically reduce stress levels.

Overwork, burnout and perfectionism is a growing problem at work. It’s worth seeking out and then going for more than a deadline.