Okay, so I went through Step One: Admitting You Have Problem.
Now, on to the hard part. If this was a food diet, most likely the first thing I would need to do was to keep track of everything I had for a week. Because really, you don't know what to cut out until you know what's on your plate . . . literally.
So, here's my Information Inventory. (Not that I am recommending the Low Info Diet to everyone, but if you want to go through this process with me, you're going to have to do this, too.)
I get up about 6 am every morning and usually turn on either the Weather Channel or ESPN and head straight to my computer. I usually start with my email accounts (I have several) and then open up The Drudge Report. Not for any political reasons, but I have been visiting this site since before I started BadJocks.com back in February of 2000. And it is a great place to get story scoops . . . or at least it used to be. I also usually check out the UK tabloid site, The Daily Mail, because they have a great combination of celebrity news, weird news (great for my other site The Dumbass Daily) sports, and politics. Unfortunately, it takes FOREVER to scan through and it can sometimes be hard to link to their stories. Sometimes those two sites can kill an hour and not result any postings on any sites.
During the day I will check out Google News (because it gets updated from many sources all day long and has sections by topic) but also my guilty pleasure, Imgur.com. Lots of funny pictures and GIFs, but not a lot of meat . . . kind of like junk food.
In the evening I do manage to avoid local and national news (by the time I get home I've seen pretty much everything online already, although these two do take up a lot of people's time) but I do tend to turn on Entertainment Tonight and if I don't get up fast enough I end up watching the new OMG Insider . . . a full hour of celebrity gossip and news. The real killer here? I don't even have a celebrity website!
Back to the computer and checking Google News again, and possibly some other news sites for stories. But really, it's just a lot of reading and absorbing information that I don't need and can't use before the process starts all over again the next day.
Sound familiar? No wonder I can't get my book written! I'm spending all my time doing "research" on topics I am not really that interested in and that offer me no way to creatively use them (more on THAT later.)
The good news is that so far I haven't been sucked into Facebook and Twitter for personal use. I consider these the kings of information overload. At least with news sites, you have access to actual, well, news. Facebook and Twitter are like personal news services and people end up following dozens (if not hundreds) of little personal news feeds: Will Tonya's toddler get potty trained? Will Jack's dog recover from surgery?
The more people you like or follow, the more story lines to have to absorb. And your system can't take it.
Okay, I know MY system can't take it. Nothing against people who live on Facebook and Twitter . . . but unless you are a celebrity with millions of followers, you're probably not making money from it. (If you have learned how to monetize a low number of followers, please let me know!)
So, that's my inventory. I suppose it could be worse. The real question is what to cut and how.
Stay tuned.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Step One: Admitting You Have a Problem
Welcome to My Low Info Diet, a journal about cutting out the unnecessary information clutter from my life.
I first heard about a low information diet while reading Timothy Ferris' The 4-Hour Workweek. It only takes one chapter, but it was one of those standout moments for me. At the time I read the book, I was knee deep in research for my growing BadJocks.com web
site and couldn't imagine doing with less information. I needed more!
But then I look back and think about the things I wanted to accomplish (and still do) like writing a book. Sounds simple for someone who writes pretty much every day, but actually taking the time and creating an entire book was daunting. Never enough time for it.
Then, of course, I had to take a look at how I was spending my time and, as it turns out, it was consuming WAY too much information each day. Way beyond what I needed for my websites, way beyond what I would need to do my job.
One of things that struck me recently is how over consuming information is a lot like over eating: at a certain point, more is NOT better and actually slows you down. In a way, it makes you sick . . . possibly physically. (More on that later.)
So, the idea of this site is to start the process of weaning myself from the information trough I have been feeding at for years and start accomplishing some goals I've had even longer.
But first, I will need to admit I have a problem.
Okay, that's done. Now on to Step Two: Doing a Information Inventory.
I first heard about a low information diet while reading Timothy Ferris' The 4-Hour Workweek. It only takes one chapter, but it was one of those standout moments for me. At the time I read the book, I was knee deep in research for my growing BadJocks.com web
site and couldn't imagine doing with less information. I needed more!But then I look back and think about the things I wanted to accomplish (and still do) like writing a book. Sounds simple for someone who writes pretty much every day, but actually taking the time and creating an entire book was daunting. Never enough time for it.
Then, of course, I had to take a look at how I was spending my time and, as it turns out, it was consuming WAY too much information each day. Way beyond what I needed for my websites, way beyond what I would need to do my job.
One of things that struck me recently is how over consuming information is a lot like over eating: at a certain point, more is NOT better and actually slows you down. In a way, it makes you sick . . . possibly physically. (More on that later.)
So, the idea of this site is to start the process of weaning myself from the information trough I have been feeding at for years and start accomplishing some goals I've had even longer.
But first, I will need to admit I have a problem.
Okay, that's done. Now on to Step Two: Doing a Information Inventory.
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