{"id":4144,"date":"2015-07-30T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=4144"},"modified":"2018-05-01T15:48:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T19:48:50","slug":"365103-tmi-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365103-tmi-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#103: TMI-Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Days-112-Extra-Question-mark.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3585\" src=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Days-112-Extra-Question-mark.jpg\" alt=\"Days 112 Extra - Question mark\" width=\"93\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a>Too Much Information can come in many forms \u2013 paper, TV\/radio, e-mails, social media, phones, and bad news. As much as conscientious people want to be informed, still collectively it can create mental clutter. The solution is not to become ignorant, but rather to differentiate the important from the trivial or distracting.\u00a0Having now spent 10 weeks analyzing my own consumption of information, I offer you the following insights:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. \u00a0DECIDE WHAT\u2019S IMPORTANT<\/strong>.<br \/>\nJust as clearing out tangible things from your life require assessment of what\u2019s really necessary, so too clearing mental clutter requires assessing how important is the news, when is it repetitive, and how much time it takes?<br \/>\n<strong>A Strategy:<\/strong> Log your news diet for a week.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How much time do you average a day consuming info from newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, email, and social media?<\/li>\n<li>Rank your life priorities (family time, job, direct interaction with friends, spiritual fulfillment, volunteer work\u2026). Outside of sleep and job, how much time each day do you devote to your priorities? How much time is left?<\/li>\n<li>How does your news consumption time compare with what\u2019s most important in your life? The rule of thumb I\u2019m coming to myself is that if my news consumption is more than 10% (2\u00bd hours) of my day, it\u2019s probably too much.<\/li>\n<li>If most of the news is trivial or passing, cut it back more.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The 10% rule is arbitrary and will vary depending on whether you are in the active parenting stage of life, retired, media is your job, etc. Still I liked the cleanness of the number 10 and it coincides with the biblical standard of tithing 10% of one\u2019s income. \ud83d\ude15<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. \u00a0TRIM LESS IMPORTANT MEDIA<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Unsubscribe from little read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/36598-tmi-paper\/\">newspapers, junk mail<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365100-tmi-computers\/\">email bulletins<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.donotcall.gov\/\">sales calls<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Organize your email. This can be tedious but if you don\u2019t already have a system for filtering and putting things in logical folders, do it now. It will save you time in the future.<\/li>\n<li>Get control of Facebook and other social media. I\u2019m tempted to say \u201cCancel Facebook\u201d since it can be a time hog. BUT, I get too much good information about my far flung family, friends who I don\u2019t see much, and causes that I care about to go cold turkey. Instead I skim and delete purely social posts and retain articles I want to read later for when I\u2019m on hold.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3. \u00a0CONSUME NEWS WHILE DOING MINDLESS ACTIVITIES<br \/>\n<\/strong>Since I can\u2019t bring myself to actually skip listening to NPR or an interesting podcast I multitask while walking, folding laundry, traveling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. \u00a0USE WAITING TIME<br \/>\n<\/strong>Waiting time can also be a time to multitask. For example, waiting on hold for tech support is a time to check Facebook, waiting at a doctor\u2019s office is a time to read the newspaper, waiting in line at a store can be a time to chat with your child (or embarrass your teen). Still these might also be times to consider NOT being \u201cproductive\u201d in the traditional sense. Sometimes I try to take this time to pray for the person in front of me in line or for the people in the cars around me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. \u00a0BEYOND \u201cWAITING TIME\u201d \u2013 BREATHE, PAUSE, MEDITATE<br \/>\n<\/strong>As much as I like to maximize my use of time, we Type A personalities, might consider just doing nothing. Sometimes solitude is what I need in the midst of noise, busyness, and crowds. Sometimes the decision to just sit or stand mindfully is the way to handle Too Much Information. Let the pressure go and remember point #1 &#8211; What\u2019s important.<\/p>\n<p>For more detail on TMI, see my posts on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/36598-tmi-paper\/\">paper<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/36598-tmi-tv-radio\/\">TV\/radio<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365100-tmi-computers\/\">computers<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365101-tmi-phones\/\">phones<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365102-tmi-bad-news\/\">bad news<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Too Much Information can come in many forms \u2013 paper, TV\/radio, e-mails, social media, phones, and bad news. As much as conscientious people want to be informed, still collectively it can create mental clutter. The solution is not to become ignorant, but rather to differentiate the important from the trivial or distracting.\u00a0Having now spent 10 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[49,43],"class_list":["post-4144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-stuff","tag-time","tag-tmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4144"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4299,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4144\/revisions\/4299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}