Drinking From the Firehose: Information Overload and Managing Your Email

Originally published on: 3/1/2006 6:30:58 AM

"Drinking From the Firehose" is the title of a book I'm working on for dealing with information overload. As most of you know, I filter through literally¹ several thousand messages per day when you combine email directly to me, mailing lists, spam, RSS feed items, etc. This can leave one figuratively² trying to drink from the firehose. As such, I've built up some adaptive mechanisms for dealing with high levels of incoming information and have started organizing that information as well as seeking out tips and tricks from those who are also attempting to manage the flow.

Which leads me to this post. Via one of the mailing lists I'm subscribed to that I was made aware of Email Overload, a site with a self-evident scope. It just so happens that the LinkedIn Bloggers mailing list is featuring that site in its spotlight for the day today. After looking at it, I actually sent the author an email asking if there might be interest in contributing to my book. In return, I actually got an offer of the use of a new Outlook plugin that helps with the problem and consideration of my book collaboration. In short, everyone wins.

If you are overwhelmed by the influx of email, give the site a look and stay tuned for more of my own information on the topic. Because, between that and managing asynchronicity, I think are many of the secrets to surviving the 21st century.

¹Yes, I actually know how to use the term properly and did so here.

²This is the one most people are looking for when they say literally.

Comments

Email Overloaded » Information Overload is like Drinking from a Firehose
commented on 3/6/2006 [...] Blogger and author J Wynia came up with a great analogy for how we are constantly bombarded with such a wealth of information that we often drown in it. He is writing a book entitled “Drinking From the Firehose” about how to deal with the daily deluge of email, mailing lists, SPAM and RSS feeds. [...]

Elmine Wijnia
commented on 3/9/2006 Hi J,

Some months ago I stumbled upon your blog and out of curiousity, since our last names are basically the same (in Dutch 'ij' is substitute for 'y'), subscribed to your feed.

Now that you appear to be writing a book on (dealing with) information overload, I can't resist pointing you to my partner in life, Ton Zijlstra. His view is that information overload doesn't exist, our only problem is that we don't learn new strategies for dealing with information.

If your interested in his view, check out his blog : http://www.zylstra.org/blog. See e.g one of his earlier posts on the topic: http://www.zylstra.org/blog/archives/001229.html

Regards,

Elmine

J Wynia
commented on 3/9/2006 Yep. When the family came into the US, the "ij" got changed on the paperwork. Same thing happened on pretty much all sides of my family. All of the geneology stuff has dozens of spelling variations. Lots of them ended up Wynja as well.

Incidentally, I'm actually about as full-blooded Dutch as Americans get. Dad's side is Wynia and Franken and Mom's side is Zwart and Swiers.

I took a look at both your and Ton's sites and put them both into my feeds. I agree with the strategies part. I know that I deal with lots more information than seems to overwhelm lots of other people and it's not like I'm special. I've just learned to cope with it and figured out ways to handle it.

Of course I also want to glare at you a bit for putting pictures of oliebollen in front of me when I'm on a diet. :)