We’ve got email. We’ve got RSS feeds. Endless amounts of websites. Voice mails. Phone calls. Honey-do lists. Bills. Pieces of paper all over the frickin’ place.

Sound familiar?

In this day and age, information overload is not only common, it is practically the rule of existence. The problem is that it can get in the way. It can lead to mental confusion. It can lead to wheel spinning. It can lead to that feeling that you’ve been BUSY all day, but nothing really got done.

It is important that people develop skills in dealing with information. Develop a system whereby you can handle all the incoming data being thrown at you. Better yet, you may decide that some of that data is completely useless to you and simply turn it off.

Here are some simple tips to help you keep your head from exploding. Doing this will be a lot eaiser than picking up the bloody pieces of your brain off the floor (nice visual, I know)..

1. Don’t let email rule your life. I suggest you set aside certain times of the day to handle your email. Perhaps for one hour in the morning. Or perhaps you might schedule one check in the morning and one in the afternoon. Either way, the idea is to limit time spent in your email client. And, for god sakes, CLOSE the email client when not in these times. Resist the urge to check incoming messages at random times during the day. It simply distracts you from real work. Also, get rid of any notifiers of new email. You don’t want anything popping up from your taskbar to tell you you have new email.
2. Use RSS, But Do So Strategically. RSS is a great invention. It allows you to monitor a bunch of websites (usually blogs) from one place without the need to go and check on those sites individually. Good idea, except that it can lead to even more noise and information overload. So, if you are going to use RSS, be sure to only keep the feeds in there that you actually value. You don’t need to be subscribed to every blog under the sun. It gets you nowhere.
3. Empty And Organize The Inbox. Back to the subject of email, a lot of people end up using their email inbox as a repository for crap we don’t want to do right now or haven’t gotten around to. This means that when you look at your inbox, it is a long unwieldy list of C-R-A-P. The answer to this is twofold: (1) Create folders and labels (if using Gmail) to organize your email by types, (2) Use your inbox only for staging. When an email arrives, you evaluate it. If you can handle it in just a few minutes, do it right then. If not, file it away in the proper folder and get it out of your inbox. Each time you check your email, then, the end product is an empty inbox.
4. Use a paper inbox, too. It is great to have your email come into an inbox. But, what about all those paper particles? You should treat them the same way. Put a 3-box stacking system on your desk: IN, PENDING and OUT. Then, ALL particles that come in should go to your inbox. When you sit down to handle your communication, you deal with each item in your inbox and empty it. Learn to treat these papers the same way you do your email. Don’t have them sitting around all over you desk as that only contributes to the information overload.
5. Control Your Phone. When you’re working, you don’t need any distraction. With email and papers, you can control the timing. However, phone calls come in at random times and you have no record of it. It is insanity. The way you control that is to let all incoming phone calls go straight to voice mail (and turn your ringer off so the calls don’t distract you). Then, you handle all voice mails the same way you deal with your email – at scheduled times. In fact, if you use VOIP then you may even have your voice mails sent right to your email inbox which is even better.
6. Use an auto-responder and voice mail message to inform others. Some people expect to have their messages returned right away. Great for them, extremely inconvenient for you getting any work done. So, use an auto-responder on your email to inform them that there will be a delay and that you return messages only at certain times. Also, you can change your voice mail message to tell them the same.
7. Turn off Twitter. A lot of bloggers and social media types (including myself) make use of Twitter. But, realize that it only adds to the information overload. So, I’m not saying you need to stop using Twitter completely if you enjoy it, but you might try just turning off your Twitter client (or no checking the website) when you’re working. Again, you’re trying to minimize distraction and incoming tweets is nothing but that. Knowing some dude is going out for pizza is completely useless knowledge when it comes to your production.
8. Stop reading the news. Seriously. Its fine to check up on it every now and then, but reading DrudgeReport 10 times per day does nothing but suck your time and put more bulls*it bad news into your already saturated head.
9. When possible, automate. Data backup is important, but put it on automatic. Automate your virus scans. Automate email organization using filtering.
10. Have balance in your life. When I had my daughter a few months ago, I realized more then ever how important it is to have balance. Don’t spend ALL the time on the computer. Family is important. YOU are important and sometimes it is better for you to go exercise or simply veg out and watch TV for an hour. You need a little time off sometimes, and the Internet is not going anywhere.

Some of these tips are an acquired art. At first, you may feel fits of withdrawal not being part of the Twitter conversation at all times, or not getting that email the very second it arrives. But, you’ll probably accomplish a lot more.

Bloggers, especially, may find this stuff hard to do. Our jobs DEPEND on being part of the social framework on the Internet. I understand and I have the same problem. But, at the very least, when you’ve got work to do, give these things a try.

Your to-do list ill thank you.