The Entrepreneur's Solution For Information Overload

If you read any of the classic success books, you’ll always find a chapter that has something to do with finding a mentor, coach, or taking part in a mastermind. There are many reasons for this, but on the most basic level, the reason success is never achieved alone is because most people cannot teach themselves to be successful. They simply don’t know what to do.

I’m not talking about the necessary personality traits of discipline, persistence, and tenacity that are needed if you want to be successful, I’m talking about the nuts and bolts of success, the actual plan of action one needs to take in order to get on the path to success.

In any field or industry, there are always shortcuts, unspoken norms, and essential tools to know if you’re going to get yourself on the fast track.

In most environments, the common short cut is the strength of your personal relationships. But, in entrepreneurship, the short cut may be as simple as a new social media management tool that automatically posts to Twitter. You knowledge of these tools and workflows can save you hours of time, which you can then use for the most essential aspect of your job.

However, finding someone who can show you the way is difficult. Beyond finding someone who has the requisite credentials and experience, it’s hard to find someone who you click with too. 

So what’s one solution to figuring it all out? The Internet! 

Between YouTube, Reddit, personal blogs, Quora, and Google itself, literally everything you’d ever want to learn is out there. Right now, I learn primarily from podcasts, and there are tons of podcasts out there for any topic. I’ve found my favorite podcasts to be interviews, where in only 20 minutes (listening on 2x speed), I can learn the best distilled knowledge from entrepreneurs who have been in business for years. Recently, I’ve been learning about Pinterest marketing from podcasts - which software tools to use to make sure I’m not on Pinterest all day, and how to effectively use their platform for building an audience (a critical component of any business these days). 

That being said, it’s extremely easy to drown yourself in information. Once you go down the rabbit hole of Subreddits, podcasts, and blogs, you may not come out to breathe until hours later. And this information overload can absolutely destroy your productivity and your goals.

You’ve therefore got this catch-22. You need to keep learning from the blogs and podcasts relevant to your business so you can learn ways to increase your productivity. You need to keep reading the tech blogs because you need to stay up to date on the changes in your industry and you may come across a new tool that will help you in your business. But you can’t spend a lot of time doing this because the real essential action of your business is not achieved through learning alone.

So what do you do? Schedule “learning time” in your calendar.

Learning time for podcasts can be when you’re on the bus, subway, or in the car. Learning time for reading blogs can be at night after your most productive period of the day is over. But, whatever you do, don’t let learning time creep into the time where your mind is the sharpest and most creative.

If you come across something interesting during the day, save it in an Evernote folder or write it down on a piece of paper so you can come back to it later.

It’s much easier said than done but being disciplined in your learning schedule will prevent you from the productivity killers of information overload, analysis paralysis, and the limiting belief that you need to learn more before getting started.

If you want to give this a shot try this: before you go to sleep tonight, open up your calendar for tomorrow, and block out a one hour time slot and call it “learning.”Tomorrow as you’re working, keep a document open on the side where you can paste the URLs of interesting blog posts or other ideas you want to research. Save all your learning time in the day for this period of time you set for yourself in advance. If you do this and make it a practice, you’ll find your days more productive and your learning time more effective.