How much time do you spend surfing the
Internet, collecting information on your hobbies, special Interests,
or business?
Maybe you subscribe to important newsletters, 'How-To do stuff' web
sites, article services, financial reporting services, and
other Information Rich sources.
Many of us spend enjoyable hours on the Internet, reading and
collecting the special information that excites our interests, and
then save pages and pages of information that we feel we must really
keep for some future special use.
If you're an Information Addict (I am), your computer hard drives
and even your desks, files cabinets, and book shelves are probably
overflowing with papers you might even forget you saved. |
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The age that we live in is called the
information age and the Internet is the information
superhighway.
If you're an e-business owner, it's possible that you've been run
over on the information superhighway. Unfortunately, the traffic is
often so heavy that it's difficult to get up! The information just keeps
coming and coming and coming.
Have you ever felt ready to throw your hands in the air and yell for
help? Have you wondered what can be done about all of the
information coming at us all at once? What strategies can be used to
manage the flow of information so that you only have to deal with
the important stuff?
First, let's look at what information you've got coming at you:
If you're online all day long, there's a good chance that a lot of
it is from browsing around the Internet, looking for information
that you can use. Perhaps you get lots and lots of emails from people (as well as
spam)...including vendors, customers, family, and friends.
If you have a business, you probably get reports from your
advertising efforts, like Google
Adwords, and there may be times (like when you own several websites)
that you have to manage such information as domain registrars,
hosting problems, etc.
The first thing you want to do is deal with the flow coming in:
Before reading any information, give it a quick glance and decide if
it's critical to your personal interests or business efforts and if it is, save
it. If it isn't, delete it.
Resist the urge to review everything with a fine-tooth comb and
resist the urge to respond to emails as soon as they come in.
Decide whether you need to spend two hours gathering marketing
information or only one hour.
Prioritize information coming in so that you only deal with the
most important information and can simply glance at and correctly
file the less important information.
Review and prioritize to first reduce the flow.
The second thing to do is manage the flow that you're
allowing through:
To do this, you'll want to create systems and use databases so you
can keep track of everything. Not everything needs all of your
attention right away. You can use information managers and task
managers to help you manage the flow of information coming in to
you.
What's the end result? You'll have less information to deal
with...so you'll have more time to spend on your own special
interests and if you have a business - on critical business
activities like marketing...so you'll generate more customers...so
you'll generate more sales...so you'll generate more profit!
I mentioned above that I was an "Information Addict".
Over the past ten years or so of following my passion for web
surfing, I did fill up desk drawers, file cabinets, book shelves and
used reams and reams of paper.
A few years ago I found a simple way to reduce the pages
of information by nearly half.
I outlined this simple method and saved it as a PDF file to
share with my family and friends.
It's available to you for free, and you don't even need to give me
your name or email
address. Just download it by Right Clicking and Saving the
"Information
Addict" report from HERE. Save it to your Desktop and unZip the small PDF file.
Another major benefit of cutting down the incoming information
is that you also reduce the potential for receiving virus or worm
infected email.
... Richard Rossbauer |