Your inbox is packed, your RSS feed has more than 2,000 new entries, and at this point even your voicemail box is two messages away from full. When you receive updates all day every day, keeping up with the constant flow of information is beyond time-consuming.
What’s really hard – impossibly hard at times – is filtering the information so the important announcements, news, trends, and need-to-know industry information that you absolutely must keep up with. I struggle with this all the time – I need to know what’s going on in the worlds of marketing and social media, technology, and the startup industry.
I did some research to see if I could streamline the process a bit. Here are 3 ways I found to manage the flow of information:
1. Pick and choose what’s really important
This seems obvious, but seriously, you do not need to know everything. You have got to let go of the idea that one person – you – needs to know everything that’s going on. Let yourself skip over a few articles or news briefs. It might be difficult to do at first, but when you get a little picky about the information you choose to take in, you clear up a lot of time for the things that do matter.
2. Use alerts to filter out the noise
If you haven’t started using Google Alerts yet, do it. Set up an alert for your name, your company’s name, important industry keywords, product categories, and maybe even your competitors. Google will do the legwork for your while you sit back and receive an email notification with every mention that actively interests you. You can also set up Twitter alerts to work the same way using services such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite.
3. Schedule reading time
Plan time each day to follow real-time news, as well as time to skim your Twitter stream and Facebook wall. If you want to be in the know and also be able to take advantage of unexpected PR opportunities, check two or three times a day, but don’t obsess over it. The Internet (and the news) should not be a major source of stress, so don’t treat it as one.
Image via Flickr (creative commons) by topgold
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