One of the biggest gripes I hear a lot about these days is [TAG-Tec]information overload[/TAG-Tec]. There’s just too much information out there now for our own darned good. And you have to either search far and wide for the really good, really relevant stuff, or else be prepared to fork over huge sums of money for someone else to find and summarize it all for you. I could rant about that for days, but that’s not where I’m going this time.

What I’m thinking today is more about how we as information publishers contribute to that overload.

So just what is information overload?

According to Wikipedia, information overload “is a term that is usually used in conjunction with various forms of Computer-mediated communication such as Electronic mail. It refers to the state of having too much information to make a decision or remain informed about a topic.”

There are definite repercussions in dealing with it too. Stress, frustration, total mental paralysis when it comes to actually retaining and processing what you’re reading… Let’s face it, information overload makes us feel like crap. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I feel like I’m getting more stupid by the minute. In fact, I got a bit overloaded myself when I started to search for information to put in this article and came up with 1.7 million results for an exact search. Where do I start?

One of the things I found in my search was a flyer on the Washington College website that lists these symptoms and side effects of information overload. It says you probably have too much on your brain if you:

• make mistakes
• forget to do something
• let things slip through the cracks
• become sluggish
• lose creativity
• become unproductive
• procrastinate
• become indecisive
• get stressed out
• experience a total mental break down

And this is exactly what got me thinking… If I suffer from being overloaded and overstimulated with information, and it’s my job is to provide at least some of the information I find to my site visitors, customers, and clients in a way that makes sense, how do I do that in a way that I am not contributing to their information overload?

How does this relate to Information Marketing?

Here’s what got me thinking about this whole mess….

I’m writing a report to give away to new subscribers and visitors to Personal-Growth-Articles.com. The site’s not live yet because I really want to make sure I do it right this time. So I’ve been following all the “proper” internet marketing steps to get it ready for visitors. If you’ve been around for any length of time, you know the drill:

• write a report
• fill it full of affiliate links
• trade it for an email address
• make an irresistable one time offer (OTO)
• make your money on the back end by sending your new subscribers other information and offers (and for the cynical among us… feel really good about doing it because you’ve invoked the law of reciprocity by giving away something for free first.)

Now, the main type of OTO that you see these days, especially in the IM niche, is a huge package of ebooks and/or audios and/or videos. So as I was writing my report I was mentally cataloging each topic and thinking, I could add something on that to the OTO package.

And then that annoying little voice that pops up every so often came on loud and clear, and asked me “Do you really think that your customers want some huge pile of ebooks that they’re never going to read? Or worse yet, they’ll get so overwhelmed by the amount of information you’re piling on them all at once, they won’t get any benefit out of any of it!”

I really love my little voice. It’s given me great advice over the years, when I take action on it. I’ve pretty much learned to ignore it at my peril. So the question remains… What kind of offer do I put together that will help someone and NOT contribute to another case of information overload.

Sigh… Back to the drawing board.

I’ll let you know what I decide on. In the meantime, feel free to leave your suggestions and comments below.

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Your “must do” list, that is.

You do have one, don’t you?

Allow me to explain, in the manner of the newly converted…

One of the drawbacks I’ve noticed while focusing on getting the new article site ready is that although spending all your time on one website until it’s up and running and turning a profit is really great in theory, it doesn’t translate so well into practice when you have more than one site to maintain.

As a matter of fact, it can be downright stressful. Especially if those other sites are done in a format where your visitors are expecting to find fresh content on a regular basis (like a blog).

So I’ve been feeling a little guilty about neglecting everything else while I rebuild one site. (I’m hiding it well, don’t you think?) I was whining to a friend about it, and he came up with an excellent idea…

He told me to create a “must do” list.

A “must do” list is better than a to do list, because it takes all the guess work out of it. The idea, he told me, is to set a schedule for what sites need to be worked on every day whether it be for adding new content, updating a blog, or doing some promotion, etc. and then that’s the bare minimum that you “must do” every day.

Now, for the ultra-organized, this may seem like a no-brainer but for me it was like a light bulb going off! To actually sit down and create a schedule of which sites and blogs I would focus on for a given day was something I had never even thought of. My time management planning was always more along the lines of getting up in the morning and doing the “gee what do I feel like working on today” routine. (That could go a long way toward explaining the stack of unfinished project folders on my desk.)

Not anymore.

I spent the weekend creating a schedule so that all of my sites get updated at least once a week and turned it into my “must do” checklists. It’s the first list I tackle every morning now, and I know exactly what I need to be writing about on any given day. It helps to keep me focused too, because I know that once it’s done and everything on the list is crossed off for the day, I can go on to my other to-do lists — the ones with the fun stuff on them.

And at that point, “what shall I work on today” takes on a whole new meaning. When the must-dos are done, it means I can give free reign to my inspiration and creativity, and just go with the flow… but that’s a topic for another day.

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