Information Overload: Reclaiming Your Productivity
Information Overload: Reclaiming Your Productivity
Whether you’re brand new to online marketing or you’ve been at this awhile, chances are you sometimes feel like your productivity is dwindling. But it’s not because you’re distracted or lacking motivation.
In fact, it’s your sheer focus and commitment to success that might be the driving factor in why you’re exhausted and overwhelmed. You may have accidentally set yourself up for burnout when it comes to being too dedicated to intense learning, networking and publishing.
There are so many things to learn – not just as a newbie, either. This is a career path that requires continual learning. Whenever something changes like search engine optimization or the emergence of a new technology, you’re thrust into the learning arena all over again.
You buy courses. You sign up for conferences. You join or launch groups on Facebook to stay abreast of what you need to know. Before you know it, you’re dreading the day because you can’t even get started on moneymaking tasks until you check all of your social media, go through a course, and publish niche content of your own.
Overwhelm Can Paralyze Your Decision Making Process
If you’re concerned about all there is to know, it can bring your productivity to a screeching halt. You don’t want to even publish a blog post if you know there’s a haunting threat of a search engine algorithm change.
So instead of publishing for your readers, you put it off until you have time to go through a new SEO course, which is likely to become outdated the second it goes live. There are other marketers who wake up and make decisions without having to first field thoughts about the million and one things that could make or break their efforts.
They simply focus on catering to the needs of their audience. They do it in the best way they know how. They carve out time later for learning, because no one is saying it needs to be put on the backburner forever.
There’s a certain amount of gut instinct and common sense required to run a business as an online entrepreneur and you can’t forever be relying on a course or group tip to shore up your decisions.
This is a concept based on a lack of confidence and fear of failure. It’s the bold and innovative thought leaders who make steps to advance their brand without being tied to the learning process as a way to sweep for signs of possible problems.
How to Know If You’re Stuck in a Cycle of Information Overload
There will be signs and they may not be apparent at first. Initially, you’ll be so proud of yourself for your diligence in learning, participating and being proactive. It’s not until you start seeing cracks in your system that it becomes a visible problem.
First, you might notice that although you worked hard all day, you got very little done on your to do list. Or it may be the tasks that actually make you money that you haven’t completed, because the rest of your to do list (learning and absorbing information) was all marked off.
You might start to become exhausted having to keep up with all of the industry changes and find yourself hoping that everything can just stay the same for a little while. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen in this industry, but what you have to understand is that you don't have to instantly learn and apply every single thing as it emerges.
You might start to notice that you have trouble making decisions on which direction to take. This can range from major career options like which business model to pursue to minor issues like what slant you want to take with a piece of content.
Information overload can cause you to second guess everything you are doing, and what happens is you end up staying stuck not doing anything. You might also start to feel overwhelmed at the very start of your day whenever you sit down and begin going through all of the online communities, realizing you have a webinar to attend that is listed on your calendar, and you see file after file of courses you need to complete before you feel ready to take action.
If you've been in this industry for awhile, you might catch yourself being nostalgic about simpler times in this business when everything seemed black and white. The truth is, it's no different today than it was then, but it may move at a slightly faster pace.
The Damage Being Done By Excessive Information Input
There is a price to pay for those who do nothing to remedy the problem of information overload. It's more than just feeling frustrated at your lack of productivity. You are going to eventually chip away at your intuition so that you no longer trust anything you decide to do.
This is a very serious problem for an online entrepreneur who has no team or coworkers to lean on as they make a decision. If you can't do this on your own, you will be like a deer in the headlights, unable to move forward.
Financially, you are going to take a hit, whether that means a loss of income or the failure to generate income from the very beginning. You won't be able to take action in a way that earns you money because you are stuck in the learning and decision making process.
Another way you are going to lose financially is with all of the investments that you are making in courses that you never take action on because there is constantly something new to purchase and learn.
What's worse is that as you are learning from a last number of sources, you are going to run into conflicting advice or strategies that each claim to be the best path forward. Without the ability to make decisions on your own, you won't be able to choose the right answer for your business.
The Fix for Overwhelming Information Issues
So how do you fix this problem? The first step is for you to understand your own personal capacity for absorbing new information. Each person is different and has various skills in terms of how fast they can read or learn new concepts.
If you can zoom through a course quickly, it may not be as much of a problem as someone who has to take their time and reread concepts in order to understand them fully.
You have to begin recognizing the difference between learning and procrastinating. There are many people reading this report right now who are using the learning process as an excuse not to take action and potentially fail.
You also need to keep yourself emotionally strong in all ways as an entrepreneur. Mental fortitude means waking up with a balanced approach to life, removing toxic people and negative influences from your close circles and learning how to engage in stress-relieving tactics to prevent a build-up of frustration.
You also want to reclaim your ability to make decisions with ease. Start practicing the art of trusting yourself. Even the most informed entrepreneurs will make mistakes, but you can’t allow that to paralyze you.
When it comes to the learning process, don’t think you have to give it up. Just be selective in what you devote your time to and absorb in bite-sized increments. That might be sitting down for half an hour each day for learning or it may mean dedicating one day a week to the learning process.
But don’t let it eat all of your time. The majority of your time needs to be spent carrying out moneymaking tasks like creating info products, improving conversions for sales copy or emails, and more.
It’s time for you to embrace the moniker of leader in your niche and with this label comes the responsibility of trusting in yourself to guide you in what should be done. There’s a balance you can strike between this position of authority and one where you admit you continue to have a lot to learn.
