As small business owners we are constantly facing an information overload. Mail, email, and online web activity can introduce us to a myriad of new ideas, techniques, and products which we often feel can make our business better. It is always great to seek out new ideas to use with your business, however, when we are faced with that information overload, it can be too much and we simply walk away and gain no benefit.
I, like you, face this daily (hourly?) influx of information and admit I have spent an entire evening weaving a winding path of articles on marketing, lead generation, direct mail, social media and so much more. It can easily become a 'time suck' and take your attention away from those which are more important. Over time I have been able to develop some strategies which help to organize and tame this information overload and turn the tables, so that you can make the best use of the valuable information.
Creating Your Information Strategy
The first step in taming the information overload is determining what will most benefit your business vs what is just noise or 'shiny objects'. To do this, create a list of topics that you would like to learn more about or require to effectively run and grow your business. You list could look simiar to this:
Lead Generation
- How to get more customers
- Networking
- Creating a referral network
Marketing
- Inbound vs Outbound
- Online vs Offline
- Direct Mail
- Search Marketing
Recruiting/Staff Management
- Inbound vs Outbound
- Online vs Offline
- Direct Mail
- Search Marketing
Once you have your list together, prioritize it into items which will most benefit your business the most. You will then need to tackle ONE topic at a time and give your full attention to that subject matter without going off into others. Whatever it is you decide to start, you must make the commitment to finish it. This is assuming what you are learning has value.
Schedule Your Time Accordingly
Every business is different and therefore you should do what works best for you, but you should definitely schedule a set amount of time to dedicate to learning in every week. A preferred amount of time would be 30-60 minutes a day set aside to tackle the information within the topic.
Once you have set aside a topic to work on, schedule it in for an entire week. This means that any information you find, which is not related to that topic, gets saved until that week is over. We'll address how to get past the anxiety of losing that information below, so don't worry, it won't get lost or forgotten.
You'll find that by dedicating your attention to a single topic, you are more likely to retain the information and not have it written over quickly by unrelated subject matter.
Use It or Lose It
While reading and learning are important, truly grasping a topic comes when you put what you have learned to practical use. So, the next week will be spent putting what you have used into practice. Find ways to try, test, and refine your new skills in your daily operations. If it is marketing, then try a new method you learned or a new service you found. If it is lead gen, then go out and attend a networking events or a new email marketing process. The key is to put you efforts into just one area. Give this as much time as is deemed necessary to qualify the new methods. Keep what works and lose what don't, then move on to the next topic.
Keep in mind that your list can be started over and over again. Go through it once and learn what you can, try some new methods, meet some new people, then go back and start it again from the beginning. Or, revise it into a new list of more targeted areas. It's up to you.
Save Information For Later
If you simply cannot resist clicking on that link or happen to run across a great piece of information that you don't want to lose or forget, you can always save it for later reading. There are two great ways I have found to save and easily retrieve info, Print Friendly and Evernote. I now use only these two great tools to manage information, both personally and professionally. I love them both because they are easy to use and require very little effort.
Print Friendly - Have you ever found a great article, recipe, pattern online and want to save it, but when you try to print it out or save it, the formatting gets messed up or something gets lost? This is so frustrating! Not any more. The Print Friendly service allows you to take any URL, put it in their online converter, and create a print friendly version which you can then print out or save as a PDF. I think the PDF is the best part because you can create a folder on your computer and save all of your reading there until you are ready to look at it. They also offer a browser button which makes the process even faster. Just drag the button to your browser menu and anytime you want to save something, just press the PRINT FRIENDLY button and viola!
Evernote - This little gem is single handedly responsible for eliminating a good amount of my 'piles', as I like to call them. Think of evernote as your virtual filing cabinet. Whatever it is you want to save or remember can be stored here with little effort. I recently used it to save 3 warranty cards, instructions and key for a new software program, and a recipe off the back of a flour package I was throwing away. All of which are now safely stored on my phone and computer simultaneously to retrieve whenever I need it. You can store information from the web by clipping an entire page or just a segment. You can also store information by snapping a photo of it with your phone. This is great for when you see something in a store and want to remember it. Just snap a picture and store it in your virtual filing cabinet. The use of tags makes it super easy to find your item even if you have stored hundreds of items. A MUST HAVE for efficiency!
Next time you find yourself amidst information overload, give this method a try. I have found that I now learn better, retain more, and can deal effectively with shiny objects no matter where they find me!
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