More and more lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of great stuff on the internet. I sit down at my computer, intending to spend a half-hour in my feed reader, and the next thing I know, it’s three hours later, and I’ve managed to clear out my unread list. But the trick is that I haven’t actually read any of it! All I did was bookmark it for later consumption. Typically, this pattern holds for a week or two until the backlog of bookmarks becomes so daunting that I’ve started avoiding it. Finally, I’ll sit down and plow through the list, skimming at best, wildly reblogging and saving links to delicious in the hopes that I’ll remember that one article next time I’m trying to use webfonts.
In a nutshell, my system is broken. I’m trying to consume too much, and it’s overwhelming me to the point where I’m barely consuming at all. The worst part, though, is that I’m spending so much time trying to stay “caught up,” that I’m not producing anything myself. I’m not blogging, designing, or even uploading photos. I spend what spare time I have watching TV with Annie or playing video games, and feeling guilty about the growing backlog of links, and the fact that I don’t blog anymore.
“I am fascinated,” I insisted, “That’s the problem. I am suffering from fascination burnout. Of all the things that are fascinating, I have to choose just one or two.”
– Neal Stephenson,Anathem
I know this is ridiculous. I have some kind of OCD when it comes to my feed reader. I can’t just skim, or read a little bit. I’m worried that if I don’t stay on top of things, I’ll miss the next big thing that everyone is talking about, or the hot new technique that will make my next site more awesome. It’s crazy, I know, but I can’t help it. I’m a completionist. I have the same problem with video games. Leaving audio logs unfound, or hidden packages uncollected makes me feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth, and sometimes it actually drives me to avoid finishing a game because I can’t handle the idea of just playing it without doing everything.
So. This post is an attempt to force myself to break the cycle. I’m announcing that I have a problem, and I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to go ruthlessly purge my feed reader and twitter list down to the absolute essentials. I’m going to plow through (and likely delete the majority of) my link backlog. I’m going to try to spend more time creating than consuming.
I know the feeling… My feed reading isn’t working anymore, either. I have a “starred” list in Google Reader a mile long, of things that I’m saving to read… when? I don’t know.
I also know the feeling… You are not alone. My starred items on Google Reader is ridiculously long. I also bookmarked a bunch of stuff on Delicious and I even have a folder on my computer titled “Read Later” where I drag and drop a bunch of URLs of fascinating articles I know I will die if I don’t read. But they are piling up too.
I can’t keep up anymore. I think I will join you and unsubscribe to a few feeds and just delete that “Read Later” folder. It feels so wrong and dirty to do it but I need to stay sane.
Yea I’m pretty much OCD like this too. I had to just unsubscribe from a bunch of blogs in order to free up some time. Funny that you mention the video games, I was playing way too much Farmville and decided to block it from Facebook. However I couldn’t allow myself to do that until I had fed all the chickens! LOL.
I am having the same issue. Bookmarks on delicious, 100s of feeds on the reader. spedning too much time organizing what needs to be read then actually reading it. Forgetting what i bookmarked, now I spent too much time finding what i bookmarked. This is information overload.
I have the same problem! I think the key is specialization. We need to each develop a network of people who specialize on a subject matter, whose opinion we trust, and that person filters within their matter of expertise and shares concise summaries of the important stuff from their feed. The experts post sound bites or digests on top issues, we consume the information from our expert network at a high level, and then we can dive in if we need more information. The challenge is aggregating the right / balanced network each of us needs, flagging issues for adjacent experts, and then everyone accepting lite info on many subjects, deep expertise in their area.
A lot of us have been successful by being generalists, broader than our field of expertise, so it’s a radical idea to narrow down. I can’t say I like it but I think there is too much information to be truly broad any more.
It is an awful lot easier to get an answer on something you aren’t knowledgable in though…
Isn’t it funny the things we task ourselves with that, in bulk, don’t really help us at all. Quite the opposite. Good for you for making a change. I was encountering a similar thing in my closet and decided I would get rid of all the clothes in my closet that did not make me feel “awesome.” Now when I go in there to grab a shirt, I say, “Why not this shirt? I look awesome in it!”
Clearly, a support group is way overdue! Oh and I’d love to get back to reading those thing…what are they called? You know, made of paper, bound together…oh yeah BOOKS! Man, those were awesome. I miss books.
Think I’ll go write a blog post.