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Quote:Prominent software consultant Christopher Hawkins announced yesterday what we might characterize as the “baby and the bathwater” solution to dealing with information overload. He’s unsubscribing from all his RSS feeds, deleting all his browser bookmarks, and leaving all his social networks...

In our previous discussions of avoiding information overload (and the contrarian notion that overload is good for you), most web workers have focused on ways to fine-tune and channel attention so as to find the necessary information at the right time. Hawkins is advocating a much more radical approach that will no doubt strike a chord with some people in its “the emperor has no clothes” simplicity. If trying to keep up with the fast-paced world is driving you nuts, just stop...

Quote:Prominent software consultant Christopher Hawkins announced yesterday what we might characterize as the “baby and the bathwater” solution to dealing with information overload. He’s unsubscribing from all his RSS feeds, deleting all his browser bookmarks, and leaving all his social networks...

Quote:What follows are a number of tips, to be used together or separately, depending on your needs, that will help you become the Master of your information, and stop the onslaught of information overload, so that you can reconnect with what’s truly important in your life.

1. Decide what’s important. The first step is to take a step back. Get away from the computer, go outside to some place where you can sit down and think, and take a pen and pad and make a simple list: name the 4-5 things that are most important to you. This includes work and personal life, and all the things you do (including things online) and the things you’ve always wanted to do. This might be family, it might be aspects of your career, it might be dreams and goals, it might be hobbies or passions. It could be anything. But identify the most important things in your life, and begin to make those a priority. I would guess that most of the things you do online won’t make the list...