How Do We Overcome This Immobilizing Information Overload?

It has been said time and again that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Four steps forward and five steps backwards leave us in familiar territory - for we have returned where we were previously but only that time has moved on for real.

Often, we find ourselves paralysed when stung by new information. Their effects on us are such that when you are executing an ongoing project, the new information either consumes you emotionally, or throws a spanner in the works by eating into your tight budget. We are just human and the pace at which information comes at us is ever increasing.

What we must manage is the only thing that has changed - the speed of information. The employment contract still reads as it did when we signed up and that is what matters.

As a rule of thumb, 80% of what comes at us is unnecessary. It is only 20% that is meaningful. So either ignore or walk away from the sources that are not important.

Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the USA, developed a practical time management tool aptly named the Eisenhower window. It has four quadrants. The vertical axis has two areas. Those that are important and not important aspects. And the horizontal axis has those that are urgent and not urgent. The windows combine such that in the important and urgent things window, all emergencies crop up in here. Last-minute majors find themselves here.

Not important and not urgent window carries all the trivia, the things that clutter our work-day.

The urgent but not important window has all the news and jokes that do not help our course.

We are left with one window - that of important but not urgent stuff. This is where we must aim for. Planning, reviewing and executing in a timely manner all fall here. And it is only 20% of the people whose default settings domicile them in there.

So how do you deal with keenly following the Kenya Open golf tournament at a time when the International Court of Justice is passing judgement on the Kenya - Somalia sea boundary dispute? And hot on its heels, Tanzania our neighbour loses their president at a time when the third and deadly wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has set in. A total lockdown is in the cards.

These are major events with monumental consequences. Yet, our corporate or Jua Kali objectives must go on. These are the factual things. We still have to deal with the busy stuff oozing from social media. Our WhatsApp groups do not help matters unless the admins are strict with the content shared.

We have no choice but to be brutal with what is not important to us at all. The greatest attribute today is the power to say no. Every new situation that you accept either takes you closer to attaining your objectives or gets you further removed from them.

You must have a coping mechanism because situations will always arise. If you have objectives you will always have something to achieve. So adhere to your goals. Let every temptation or destruction serve to test your resolve to remain focussed on what matters. We end it here so that you can start practising unwavering focus. Say no to all that is not important at any given time.