Are you feeling overloaded? Like there aren't enough hours in the day?
Me, too. And there aren't.
There are supposed to be 38 hours in the day. Unfortunately, "supposed to be" and "are" are two different things. And therein lies the problem. Because the root of the problem is that we have more choice than ever before in human history. And that's supposed to be good. Unfortunately, "supposed to be" and "are" are two different things.
My friend Oswald has a problem: too much to do. He has conferences to put on, real estate to renovate, race horses to breed, and pretzels to sort into piles by topological shape before he eats them. (OK, so he has a few psychological issues, too). He's just surrounded with opportunity and he's miserable. He has no free time to do the things that are important to him, like taking picnics with his shmoopie on Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
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Too Much Opportunity Is No Fun
His email inboxes? They're overflowing. He gets newsletters on conferences, real estate deals, race horse breeding, and pretzel baking. (Speaking of, have you subscribed to the Get-It-Done Guy newsletter yet? You must!)
Being a smart guy who believes in the value of good information, he saves all the newsletters and reads them in his spare time...Did I mention that he has no spare time? His "to read" folder is getting very full and half of his email time is spent scanning his inbox for the high-quality newsletters and carefully saving them to read later.
This is madness. And the problem is also the great opportunity: Thanks to the internet, we have unprecedented access to the entire human race's collective learning, articles, wisdom, and cat pictures. All we have to do is choose which to pay attention to. So we choose everything.
We Have Too Much Information
We once lived in a tiny village with 30 other people. We farmed, ate corn meal, and then farmed some more. Sometimes Bessie the cow would give milk and we'd have milk with our corn meal. Back then, opportunities to read really good newsletters was very rare. When we wanted to find out how to get our favorite broodmare to mate with the new breeding stallion, we usually just had to figure it out by trial and error. The results weren't pretty. On the rare occasions we had high quality information and opportunities, we jumped in deeply.
Now, we have access to too much. We want it all and we end up doing nothing in depth, which means we do none of it well. We used to have fewer choices and choosing between the good ones and bad ones was easy. Now we have too many choices and many are good. Choosing between good choices is tough!
What to do? So glad you asked.....
Too Much Choice = Analysis Paralysis
In my episode on how you can choose the best apps, I discuss the book The Paradox of Choice by Tony Schwartz, in which he shares hundreds of pages of research showing how horrible it is when human beings have too much choice. We're pretty good when it comes to choosing between black and white, or having the fish or steak at dinner, or vacationing at Disney World or a sewage treatment plant. But as soon as you toss in a third choice, our brain starts to freak out and life gets stressful.
And what has the internet given us? Choice - an unlimited supply of it. We can choose between things we never knew existed, never even wanted, and then feel stressed because we made the wrong choice. So we save and bookmark everything and feel stressed because we have too much choice and all of it is good. Overload no longer comes from spam. Now, overload comes from too much of what we want.
Eliminate Choice
So it's time to start eliminating choice. Yes, that's right. Start eliminating choices. Open your notepad program. Go through your inbox and unsubscribe from every newsletter, bulk email, software update, and status email you possibly can. As you unsubscribe from each one, jot it down in your notepad so you know what you used to subscribe to. Normally I would say use a pencil and paper to help you remember, but in this case, if you forget anything, that's a Good Thing. It means it wasn't important enough to be subscribed to.
Your mind is clear. You've unsubscribed from all that great information you used to get. No more newsletters, stock tips, weather facts, or deals of the day. Yes, you wanted to get all that. Yes, it was all good. And now, you're free. You may miss that great deal of the day, and you know what, now you'll spend no dollars and save more cash for your retirement.
Do a Few Things Well
Now, think deeply. What are the things you want to do well, that you care about, that you really want to devote time and attention to? Scan your list of unsubscribes and re-subscribe to 5—and only 5—of the things on the list. Yes, you care about baby seals, African orphans, religious persecution, free markets, entrepreneurship, and pending energy legislation. That's 6 things. Choose 5. Those will be the only ones you get battered with, going forward. Just be sure that the Get-It-Done Guy newsletter is one of those 5 things because how else will you get things done?
Yes, you get a ton of good information and tools from the internet. But more information won't make a difference in your life. More doing will. Choose a small number of areas where you commit to taking action. Unsubscribe from everything, then re-subscribe to 5 things only, all of which relate to your deep commitments to action. You won't be in the loop for every thing, but you'll be in the loop for the right things. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.
This is Stever Robbins. Email topic requests and suggestions to getitdone@quickanddirtytips.com.
I work with high achievers and business owners to turbo-charge their business success. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com.