Information overload getting you down?
These readers learned to control the flow and dumped the
pileup guilt.
There are more than 18,000 magazines in the
United States. ¶ About
195,000 new books were published last year. ¶ Nearly 12 billion
e-mails are sent every day in the U.S. alone. ¶ And the number of
websites and blogs just waiting for you to give them a bit of
attention? Let's not even go there. ¶ The information age indeed.
At times, it feels more like the overwhelmed-with-information age.
Between business must-reads and that hot novel everybody's talking
about, catching up on your reading often seems like an impossible
task. But it doesn't have to be. "I think it can overwhelm you if
you let it," says John Buchanan, president of the hospitality
industry's Lettuce Consulting Group. "I think the key is being able
to filter what comes to you and not let the weight of it [all] get
you down." ¶ We spoke with eight people who have put
information-control strategies to work for their work and personal
lives. Read on to find out how you can turn that stack of magazines
sitting on your night table into action items that will move your
business forward.
The Traveler
There are weeks when Cynthia Park is on the road (or in the air) 60
percent of the time. So the executive vice president and managing
director of Kang & Lee Advertising, which focuses on the
Asian-American market, reads early in the morning and in snatches
of time throughout the day.
She rises as early as 5:30 a.m. to start her news-reading ritual in
front of her computer or with the occasional hard copy of a
newspaper. "I purposely look for information when there's no
outside pressure. I really like to tackle it. I want to understand
it," she says. "My job calls for that - to be on the ball."
To take advantage of travel time or any unused time waiting for
appointments, Park keeps a folder of reading materials with her at
all times. When magazines or other periodicals arrive in the mail,
she puts them in that folder, so there's no wasted time searching
around.
Though Park used to subscribe to several newspapers at her house,
she was often faced with a guilt-inducing stack when she got home
from a trip. It would "stress me out," she says. She canceled the
subscriptions and started reading the papers online. But Park is
conscious of how easy it is to get caught up in the constant
updating of news stories on the Web. "It's okay if you get the
information in 48 or 72 hours," she says. "I'm trying to get the
complete story."
The Clipper
Lettuce Consulting Group's John Buchanan didn't need to know about
milk shakes the day he saw an article on the ice cream treats in
one of eight trade magazines he reads every month. But just in
case, he clipped it out and tossed it into his "future" file. A
month later, one of his clients wanted to talk about - you guessed
it - milk shakes. Buchanan, who says he's "disciplined bordering on
anal but not crazy," has a clippings file system that goes several
layers deep - from broad catchall files like the future folder to
topic-specific files (such as one labeled "dessert") to files for
specific projects. "Each individual has to draw the line as to how
much organization they need," he says. "Going beyond that would be
crazy."
Along with his endless clipping, Buchanan relies on refined Web
searches to find information. "If you
Google 'milk shakes,' you'll
get 50,000 hits," he says. Once his search results come up,
Buchanan scans through to see if the information is appropriate.
"What I don't do is click on the first 20 and print them all up.
It's more than likely that I won't get to them."
He maximizes this targeted reading time by starting his day with
another info source: news radio. He listens to the headlines while
he's in the shower so that he doesn't have to tackle everything
from scratch when he does his morning reading.
Two daily e-mail digests help Buchanan get right to the big stories
that others in his industry will be talking about. It cuts out the
scanning-and-searching time he would otherwise spend playing daily
catch-up. Also, in his personal reading, he doesn't get bogged
down; if a book doesn't "grab my attention in the first few pages,
I put it down and move on to the next."
The Tracker
Patrick Kowalczyk is constantly switching gears. An account
director at Michael Kaminer Public Relations, Kowalczyk's diverse
client list demands that he stay on top of the latest news in
multiple industries. His current clients include a photoblog
company, a business author, a real-estate firm, a nonprofit that
helps lesbian and gay youths, and others.
"I wake up to NPR so the news of the day filters into my head.
Subconsciously, I think it helps me figure out what to look for in
newspapers," Kowalczyk says. Considering the amount of reading
material he scans, a head start isn't just helpful; it's mandatory.
The self-described "media junkie" reads all of the New York City
dailies in print and, "at the very least,"
USA Today and the Wall
Street Journal. But his strategy hinges on reading just enough. "I
scan the headlines and then read the first three or four graphs [of
each story] to decide [whether I need to read it]," he says.
Though he still prefers print editions for his daily newspaper fix,
Kowalczyk tracks other news sources through his personal blog. "I
have links to all the [other blogs] I go to for information," he
says. "That's how I get my daily feed." Whenever he has a few
minutes, he simply goes down the list of those links from his
website and reads what he finds. Kowalczyk sticks with the same
blogs he's been reading for years, including Romenesko
(
www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45),
which serves up a hearty dose of media-industry news, and
Washington Monthly's Political Animal (
www.washingtonmonthly.com).
How does he make time for all this reading? He squeezes it into
spare moments throughout the day - a morning break, lunch, after
work, and so on. "I need to stay plugged in," he says.
The Info Scout
When your job has anything to do with technology, what's new is
beyond important - it's your work's lifeblood. "The software
industry is full of fads," says Nanette Brown, director of
architecture and quality management for
Pitney Bowes. You find
information about a "new approach, and you have to read through to
find what's valid."
Though Brown enjoys a good Google session for the "serendipitous
things that can happen when you start out on a web search," she
keeps random browsing to a minimum. To help clear out the clutter,
she subscribes to e-mail digests, like those from IT consultants
Cutter Consortium, which deliver a lot of news in easy-to-handle
chunks. She takes business magazines home to read in the evening.
And when it comes to finding the latest business books, she'll
often start her search with the reader reviews on Amazon
.com. Once she has the latest read in hand, she "has a Puritan work
ethic of starting out on page one … and then skipping around," once
she's determined the central themes of the book.
Because the
software developers and other staffers in Brown's group
often "have their heads down" working away on a specific task,
she's one of the central information gatherers for her team. But
she's not the sole reader; they all read and share what they learn,
a process that's the linchpin to her getting-all-the-reading-done
strategy. Plus, trading information is fun, she says: The software
world "is almost a café society. People drop articles on my desk
and are always exploring."
A fiction fan, Brown says that in this age of globalization there
are plenty of lessons to be learned from international novels and
short stories. "You start to get insight into other cultures and to
be entertained at the same time," she says.
The Fashionable Luddite
Don't even ask Kalman Ruttenstein which websites he visits. There's
no computer in his life. "I'm back in the twentieth century," says
the senior vice president for fashion direction at
Bloomingdale's.
Ruttenstein, who has to stay way ahead of fashion trends so he and
his team of nine fashion directors can stock the shelves and racks
of 30 stores, leaves the
web surfing to his assistant. She reads
all the online journals and then passes any intriguing bits along
to him. This way, he can focus on the fashion trade and consumer
magazines he prefers, including DNR, WWD, Elle, Glamour, and Vogue,
along with "lots of international publications." He also hits
several papers daily, but he only reads the sections that interest
him, including the business section of
the New York Times and the
business and "junk" sections of the New York Post.
He shares what he learns with his entire team. "I tear things out
and have my assistant pass things around, or I call people on the
phone or call people to my office to discuss [articles]," he says.
"I also call vendors or designers to get them up to speed on the
written word."
The Photo Collector
O, Southern Living, and
In Style aren't just fun
reading for event planner
Caroline Sewell - they're essential
business publications. Because fashion and home-decor trends
"filter into the events," Sewell tears pages out of the magazines
and then files them for future use. When Sewell meets with clients
to present her vision for their upcoming events - from corporate
parties to bar mitzvahs and beyond - she often shows them pages
from the magazines she's read. "In my business, a picture is worth
a thousand words," says the president and only full-time employee
of Encore Events. "It makes things much more clear. They say 'Oh,
that's what you were talking about.' "
Sewell is well aware that a magazine obsession can get out of hand,
so she's "pretty selective" about the titles she buys. She also
doesn't let her reading material pile up. She gets rid of the old
to focus on the new. "At one point, I would save magazines for
years and years, but I'm getting better at purging them," she says.
As for the Web, she does collect information from sites, but
usually holds off from clicking her way from website to website,
because then she'd never have time for her required reading. "You
can get in an endless loop," she says.
The PolicyMaker
The modern health-care system is, to put it mildly, complicated. So
Luis Estevez, MD, the chair of the National Hispanic Medical
Association Board of Directors and head of his own health-care
consulting firm, Estevez and Associates, has to stay on top of
advances and policy changes in medical research, economic and
political development, health-care legislation, drug information,
and, well, plenty more. It all adds up to 40 or 50 hours of reading
per week.
Every night, Estevez takes home a folder full of reading material,
with "the most important things on top." He then uses his 45-minute
commute via train to start his evening's reading with longer
articles and memos, using a strategy of reading "the hardest things
first, when I have the best clarity of mind." Once the tougher
stuff is behind him, he combats the dread of not getting enough
done by reading a slew of shorter pieces: "I have a sense of
accomplishment if I get through 10 of 12," he says.
Though medical school prepared him for a lifetime of extensive
reading, one of Estevez's most important tools is his willingness
to put things aside. To keep himself from getting off track - and
from creating an impossible reading list for himself - he has
established a set group of reading resources, and he rarely
deviates from them. "There will always be much more available than
you have time for," he says.
The Constant Reader
For W. Sherman Rogers, a full-time law professor at Howard
University and a legal consultant, reading isn't just a part of his
day. It's one of the main drivers. His key strategy for getting all
his necessary reading done is this: "I don't carve out time to
read. I read all the time," says Rogers. "Virtually everything I
read is connected to something I do or teach."
The professor's reading list includes about 12 magazines and
journals - from the jazz magazine
Down Beat to Smithsonian
to
ABA Journal - at least two daily newspapers, a variety of
websites, and, yes, blogs, which Rogers reads "for both business
and pleasure."
With such a hefty reading list, he maintains at least some control
by emphasizing hard-copy media. Newspapers "have priceless graphs
and illustrative drawings that I can use in some of my classes."
Those graphics often don't appear in the online version of the
article, Rogers says. "Additionally, I don't like to engage in
time-consuming mental reflection and strategizing while the
computer runs endlessly, emitting radiation throughout the
process," he says. "Okay, I know it's not a dangerous level - but
it's still radiation." When Rogers lands on an article "related to
ongoing research projects and/or related to matters of personal
interest," he saves a copy.
As for the separation between reading for work and pleasure, there
are no hard lines in Rogers's life: "Actually, my work-related
reading involves many life-related activities. Law is involved in
every aspect of life, from the cradle to the grave."
recommended recreational reading
now that you're an expert at managing those must-reads, you'll
have plenty of time for your want-to-read list. here are some
recommended titles.
patrick suskind's perfume: the story of a murderer "was a
real attention-grabber. it was about a place in time and characters
like i've never come across." - kalman ruttenstein
“three of my favorite books of all time:
patriarchs and prophets by e.g. white,
god and the new physics by paul davies, and the world almanac and book of facts (for all the information and trivia in one compact volume). okay, these may not be my favorite three books, but they have provided me with a great deal of inspiration and/or information relevant to life and a plausibly accurate depiction of reality and the nature of the universe.” — w. sherman rogers
frank mccourt’s
angela’s ashes, for “the humanity of it and the way he would draw the characters realistically but nonjudgmentally.” — nanette brown
john grisham’s
the last juror “was a lot of fun. i think it would make a boring movie — it’s not shoot ’em up, but it’s a [good] character study.” — luis estevez
the piano tuner, by daniel mason, “has some of the most visual writing. it made me feel like i’ve been [where the novel takes place].” — cynthia park
“the central character in robert a. heinlein’s
time enough for love is essentially immortal. he’s lived for thousands of years, and, because of his age, he’s grown wiser. that’s a concept that’s always intrigued me.” — john buchanan
“better than any self-help or management book, barbara ehrenreich’s
nickel and dimed is a powerful reminder to treat all people — whether waitress, employee, or family member — with respect and dignity.” — patrick kowalczyk