Imagine eating a nice steak or your favorite food. After 30 minutes you eat AGAIN. After 20 minutes you eat yet again. And so on. It doesn’t matter how healthy or delicious the food is - after a while the body just can’t handle it.

This is very similar to information overload. This is so cliche in our industry that it ain’t even funny. The problem is not that there’s not enough information available - it’s that it has become too much for us to absorb.

One of the new “ailments” of today is called “Information Anxiety” (as if we didn’t have enough issues to deal with ;-)). We want to learn more and more - and we feel anxious if we don’t know everything there is on a subject and we are not “up to date.”

You feel the need to read more and more books, ebooks, articles, reports and forum threads. You feel the need to watch more DVDs and online videos. You feel the need to listen to more teleseminars, CDs or audio programs.

At it’s base, seeking information is healthy. That’s how you are able to improve yourself and make better decisions. But when we overdo it, we feel stressed, anxious, disorganized, unfocused, “busy” etc…

FIO

What complicates matters even more is what I call FIO: Forced Information Overload. Information is actually being PUSHED on us from every possible direction. Even if you sit in your chair “minding your own business”, you will still get hit by “the need” for more information.

For example, you may receive an email asking you to:

- check out a new information product
- read an article
- read a blog post
- listen to a teleseminar
- check out the new “cool forum thread”

etc…

So, what can you do?

The first “obvious” solution - and why it doesn’t work:

At first glance, the “right” answer may seem to be: “Unsubscribe from everybody’s email list, stop buying or consuming new information and just focus on your business.”

This can help INITIALLY - but soon enough you’ll find that it isn’t a particularly sustainable model - especially if you consider how fast the internet and the world changes today.

3 simple steps to solving information overload

STEP 1: Based on your current knowledge, define EXACTLY what is the type of system that would give you the highest chances of succeeding. You may have a talent at PPC, SEO, writing articles, writing copy, video creation etc.

STEP 2: Create a “special report” with the EXACT process you would be following when applying this system. Include all the “mindset” tips as well as the specific action steps required. For example, if you do video marketing, one of the “mindsets” may be: “The video has to brief but also funny” while one of the actual steps may be: “Upload it to Youtube and video.Google.com.” Really imagine that you are creating a high-quality information product that you could sell - but YOU are the one who will be reading and refering to it regularly.

STEP 3: From now on, only seek out (or react to) information that is RELEVANT to the system you are using. If it’s not, just ignore it. Whenever you find a new piece of RELEVANT information, include it in your “special report” so the new piece of information becomes integrated and assimilated more easily - and acted upon faster, without confusing you.

Hope this helps,

George