Information is one of the most valuable commodities in the knowledge economy. But

what happens when it is overloaded ????

Information is one of the most valuable commodities in the knowledge economy. But

what happens when it is overloaded ????

What is Information Overload?

Information overload is a description given to the phenomenon where so much information is taken in by the human brain that it becomes nearly impossible to process it. Alvin Toffler, an academic from Russia, is credited with coining the term. Since the term was first used, it has become very popular, especially in the computer age, though some say information overload is more a time and presentation issue, than an actual data issue.

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-information-overload.htm

Information overload affects—and afflicts—both individual

knowledge workers, struggling to perform their jobs while

drowning in data, and entire office organizations, whose

productivity and customer care suffer as a consequence

Information Overload makes us DUMBER

The flood of information produces more pain than gain. Bombardment of

emails and RSS feeds sometimes result in negative impact on performance

of the employee as well as that of the company. The immense volume of

information available through various channels acts as an interruption to

the work and in turn may affect productivity , innovation and decision

making.

Information Overload Is Killing You and Your Productivity

Source: http://www.neuronglobal.com/negative-effects-information-overload-workforce

Become highly selective and ignore a large amount of information or give up and don’t

go beyond the first results in many cases

Need more time to reach a decision

Make mistakes

Have difficulties in identifying the relationship between the details and the overall

perspective and

Waste time

Sufferers from Information Overload:

Conservative estimates by International Data Corporation (IDC)

suggest that an organization with 1,000 employees wastes at least

$2.5 million per year due to the information overload dilemma such

as failing to find existing information, searching for outdated

information or recreating information that is outdated and poorly

designed. The opportunity costs are even greater, exceeding

$15million annually.

Highlights of the average number of hours spent globally per week by

knowledge workers

on the four main business activities include: 9.00 hours a week is spent on

preparing,

running and summarizing actions for meetings while 6.78 hours are spent

managing and

consolidating information such as documents, emails and web research.

For communication and collaboration such as building power point

presentations, writing

documents with others and communicating the results to colleagues takes

5.74 hours per

week. Finally, 10.70 hours is spent on project and task management.

European results show that the knowledge worker in the UK is slightly

more efficient than

the rest of Europe in managing meeting effectiveness, spending 7.83

hours per week as

opposed to 9.55 hours in Germany.

However, the UK comes last in information management, spending 7.08

hours per week,

with France spending 6.69 and Germany 5.91 hours. For communication

and collaboration,

the UK with 5.38 hours does slightly better than France’s 5.70 hours and

worse than

Germany’s 4.72 hours.

When it comes to project management, Germany is supremely efficient

spending 9.15

hours per week against the UK at 11.16 hours and France at 11.33 hours.Source: http://www.realwire.com/release_detail.asp?ReleaseID=7900

60% of professionals feel that their productivity is being affected due to

the increased

amount of information they are required to process, according to the

2010 International

Workplace Productivity Survey by LexisNexis.

One in two professionals are demoralized because they are spending

slightly more than

half their work day receiving and managing information, rather than

actually using

information to do their jobs.

At least one third to half of all the information they receive is not useful in

helping get the

work done.

Even though respondents preferred to receive

important

information via email:

•85% of respondents in Australia,

•60% in US,

•62% in UK,

•57% in China, found the constant flow of email and

other information distracting.Source: http://www.smartmanager.com.au/web/au/smartmanager/en/pages/information_overload.html

Information Overload a Real Downer, Professionals Say

Of 1,700 white collar employees polled in the United States, China, South Africa, United

Kingdom and Australia, 6 in ten are burdened with information overload.

With No Time to Read, Workers Hit Delete

91% of American professionals,84% of Chinese,82% of Australians, 73% of Brits71 % of South Africans admitted to deleting work information without fully reading it.

On the Edge: Professionals Close to Information “Breaking Point”

Source: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/46619-LexisNexis-International-Workplace-Productivity-Survey/

Overloaded by Information, Legal Professionals Say Quality Suffers

How to Reduce Information Overloading

How to Cut Out Information and Become More Productive

Possessing knowledge is essential to getting work done. However, there is a

difference between knowledge and information, and information overload can

stop productivity dead in its tracks. An important step in optimizing your work

time is to cut out all of the information that is not relevant to your work. Here

are a few ways to abandon irrelevant information and increase efficiency.

Outsourcing is a solution towards reducing information

overload. It provides company’s of all sizes a feasible

option to manage information better. By outsourcing the

data gathering and data mining services to specialized

BPO/KPO providers company‘s can reduce the amount of

time their employees spend on information gathering and

net searches. Given the number of outsourcing company’s

offering a variety of packages firm have the option of trying

subscribing to these services and let their employees to

concentrate their more important work rather than struggling

finding or managing vast range of information (e.g. finding

information on the web).

1.Outsource Your Work

Taking on a small outsourcing company gives clients a customized and

personalized service and operations process.

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) enables companies to increase

business value by maximizing resources and

managing information overload.

Outsource Your Work Contd.

Sources http://www.globetask.com/time-management/information-overload-how-to-cut-out-information-and-become-more-productive/ http://www.adaptavant.com/outsourcing/kpo

2. Reduce Information Intake to the Essentials

Decide what your essentials are. Which types of information and

source actually provide value to you? Decide how much time

you truly need to spend on things like TV, Internet, magazines,

news, etc. After you’ve decided, make it a habit. Spending less time

on gaining information that is nice to know and more time on things that

we need to know now.3. Avoid Utilizing Instant

Communication

Whether using an instant messenger or constantly checking your emails,

instant communication distracts you from what you’re doing. People are not

as good at multitasking as they’d like to believe. Switching back and forth

between tasks drastically reduces productivity across the board. Reserve a

specific time of day for communications.

4. Purpose

“Start with the end in mind” before you’re about to do

something. Doing this helps you become very efficient

at managing your time. Having a clear purpose to your

time keeps you on track and focused, while allowing you

clearly recognize distractions.

5. Planning

Schedule time to ‘work’ on each of the essential

information tasks. You might want to break these

tasks into smaller items.6. Set Time

Limits

We all have our information weaknesses, whether it’s checking

the latest blogs, playing online games, watching too much TV,

or carrying a cell phone or blackberry. By setting time limits for

tasks, it forces us to get down to the bare essentials.

7. Don’t multitask

Multitasking can give us the illusion that we are very

productive and smart. But since we can truly only focus

on one thing at a time, multitasking forces us to do extra

processing due to the cost of ‘context switching’ (the time

it takes to switch our minds when we move from one task

to another).

Sources: http://workawesome.com/communication/managing-information-overload/ http://thinksimplenow.com/productivity/how-to-reduce-information-overload/ http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/dealing-with-information-overload.html

8. Meditate

Meditation can help us immensely with information overload. Preferably you

will want to meditate once a day just before bed. Even if it is just for 5

minutes, with meditation we can stop that ever constant chatter that goes

on in our head and indulge into the restful sleep we so desperately need.

9. Try An Information Diet

Decide to go without checking an information

source for a set amount of time. Many people try

giving up TV for a week, for example. Once you

have completed the fast, evaluate your feelings. Did

you notice a positive difference in your life? Did you

loose anything by not consuming that piece of

information? Is this something you would like to give

up (or greatly reduce) permanently? Low-Tech Days – Choose a day of the week when you shut down and go ‘low-tech’ for the day. This allows you to recharge and process all the information you received during the week.

Reduce Gradually – Be gentle with yourself, and reduce gradually. For example, if you’re addicted to TV, try reducing the amount you watch a day/week/month and commit to stick to that schedule. This way, you start to reduce your TV watching to the most essential or most valuable to you.

Phone-Free Periods – Turn off your phone, or put on vibration mode in the evenings or for several hours during the day. You’ll be amazed by how much you can get done without interruption.

Thank You!!!