The OffBeat #8: Information Under-load

From chaotic to clear

Sari Azout’s work has long inspired me, but the manifesto for her new venture Startupy has particularly stuck with me since I read it.

Her thesis is that the proliferation of digital technology has made knowledge scattered and disjointed, and infinite access to contextless information — think of the hours we all spend blindly scrolling on social media — has made it difficult to extract real insights from all that intel.

In her words:

We need to transition from information as an interruption technology to information as a thinking tool.

There is a multitude of reasons why so many of us are exhausted these days. But one of the most pronounced is information overload. In our work lives and personal lives, endless information abounds — daily sales reports, weekly neighborhood newsletters, monthly account statements— and it’s up to our own already over-taxed brains to connect the dots and create conclusions so that we can think and operate clearly.

We need WD-40 for our mental gears.

Sari’s Startupy aims to provide that for founders and funders in the startup space. I’d argue we all have agency to craft our own thinking and working environment, to at least a certain extent, that promotes “information under-load”; that combats the brain-draining nature of distracted thinking and superficial scanning to lead to genuine insight.

Some tactics that work for me in the pursuit of information under-load:

• Curate your inbox and social feeds: Treat your digital foyers as sacred space — don’t let just anyone in. Pare down your newsletter subscriptions and your followed accounts ruthlessly. And, if you’re so inclined, take a hiatus from social entirely.

• Embrace JOMO: Turn Fear of Missing Out into Joy of Missing Out. It’s the perfect antidote to excess. Don’t just accept that you won’t be able to attend all the events and read all the things; embrace it. Bask in it. Taking joy in missing out means you’re making meaning of whatever else you’re doing instead.

• Give up on knowing everything: The best boss I ever had gave me guidance I’ve never forgotten: while I was onboarding into a complex role with a vast, international remit, he told me to give up on ever getting completely up-to-speed with all the details, all the time. Instead, I should select the most critical topics to become an expert in and accept that I’d only ever have a surface-level familiarity with everything else. The “everything else” is what you rely on your team and your colleagues for.

• Create cheat sheets: I’m a big fan of translating data deluge into a digestible, short-form format that’s easier on your brain. I’ve long relied on digital and physical post-its to house high-level bullets on key topics I want to be able to reference without scanning through reams of decks, spreadsheets, and paperwork to find. (And not just at work: to me, a key topic includes instructions to make optimal hard-boiled eggs.)

• Send, or ask for, a weekly digest: I typically request some semblance of a bulleted Friday wrap-up (in a prior life we called it PPPs: Progress, Plans, Problems), a curation of highlights to capture the critical pieces. When I’ve created these myself in the past for leaders, it’s helped un-clutter the mental chaos of my own week so it can be a doubly useful exercise.

If you have your own information under-load tricks, I’d love to hear them.

Have a great week,

Allison