HOW TO DEAL WITH INFORMATION OVERLOAD - MY STORYsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #lifehack7 years ago (edited)

information-overload-is-killing-our-ability-to-make-decisions.jpg

If you are in the process of building your home business or an internet business of any sort, you might have encountered information overload. Here is my story of how I got out of it.

5 YEARS AGO...

Five years ago it started with a dream. I had read in a relationship book that was giving advice to women that if a guy didn't figure out what he wanted to do in life by age 25, that he probably never will.

I was 25 back then and it hit me like a ton of brick. Until then, I was a drifter, always looking for the next shining thing. I traveled to and fro, doing odd jobs and sometimes sleeping on park benches.

It is then that I decided that I would dream up a lifestyle that I would enjoy and that I would then look for a path to attain that lifestyle. I wanted to have a mobile lifestyle, I wanted to be able to pick up my stuff and go whenever and wherever I wanted to. The only path I could imagine for someone like me who only had a post-secondary education in cabinet making was...learning how to make money with the internet.

THE INFORMATION OVERLOAD BEGAN

I'll be honest with you, I struggled a LOT the first 2 years. I kept a full-time job and worked on my online business at night. I truly wanted this lifestyle.

I didn't know HOW I would make money so I started with the affiliate marketing gigs online. I had to learn about blogging, SEO, advertising, wordpress, branding, sales copy, mindset, etc.

All of it at the same time.

Needless to say that I could feel my head throbbing at night before bed. I would even go to bed with audio recording that would teach stuff about goal setting or conversion tracking.

HOW I GOT OUT OF IT

There is a very steep learning curve at the beginning and I wish I had learned to pace myself. But I really started having a breakthrough when I started implementing the strategy I am outlining below.

Fundamentally, the issue is an imbalance in the input to output ratio. There is too much information coming in and not enough coming out. I discovered that knowledge are "tool like" and having a lot of knowledge without them being used is tough on the system.

Learn, Do, Teach

This is where blogging saved my sanity. A guy online I was listening to proposed this strategy and when I started implementing it, I felt the confusion dissipate. Basically, when you learn something new, implement it as soon as possible. If you can't implement it, don't bother with it or store it somewhere for later.

When I learned something about SEO, I started implementing on it my blog. Then, I turned around and started writing about what I did as if I was trying to explain it to someone who was brand new to internet marketing.

If you can't teach something, it's because you don't understand well enough. Writing and teaching what I had just learned forced me to truly wrap my mind and deepen my understanding of what I had just learned.

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HOW I WISH I HAD STEEMIT BACK THEN

I blogged almost everyday, sometimes twice a day, for almost a year without making any money. But looking back, it was totally worth it.

I gained the ability to write a 500 words article in less than 45min in a second language, I learned to persevere, I learned how to persuade and write in a way that is engaging and finally, I learned how to network online and get allies.

I believe that most people here have no idea how lucky they are to be blogging on this platform. Not only do they get crazy good SEO built into their blogs but they also have monetization built-in.

Even if you were to make only $1 on your post, you are 1000x more successful then when I got started on my first year of internet marketing. So please, don't complain in the comment section of my post about how you don't get any upvote. It just doesn't sit well with me as you can imagine.

Last remark...

One big trap I fell in is that I confused learning with action. Learning became an excuse not to take action at some point. So make sure that you balance what you learn and what you do with what you learn. Knowledge is power only if it is applied after all.

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I totally agree when you talk about the process - "learn and do" because internet knowledge is something you should implement as fast as possible or at some point it can be already too old. However, I am not sure about teaching. Could you comment, how does it make you better? You mentioned that blogging helped you to write and think better, but the same result can be achieved not by teaching, but for example by writing review articles. Don't you consider teaching as giving up more information to your competitors?

Teaching can help you understand stuff much better. Check out Feynman's technique https://medium.com/taking-note/learning-from-the-feynman-technique-5373014ad230

Thanks for the comment. To answer...

How does it make you better?

  • By trying to put what you learned in your own words, you are forced to put the information you've learned into a coherent framework that other people can understand. By doing that, you will remember much better than by any other means.

Why blogging?

  • Because in my niche, it is a way to Do and Teach simultaneously. By creating content, I'm increasing the numbers of followers that I have and therefore the future payout of my posts.

Am I not giving information to my competitor?

  • I am. But one thing that I gain in return is trust which is much more valuable than information or knowledge. Information only cost time at this point with the internet and only a minority of people will actually implement "free" advice. From my experience, the information people act on the most is information that has a price tag on it.

Well, that makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I think the fact that I used outsourced articles written by others, made me at some point not so much experienced. Will try to do better :)

yes bro,...,.,..,,.,

Well said

Absolutely on point @cryptoctopus. I have written 3-6 2000 word articles for a website for the past 8 years. I wish I would have had Steemit for even a portion of that time. The returns are phenomenal here. I like your final point even more. Learning is not action. Action builds the path to the future of your dreams. Thanks for posting this.

Awesome post thanks!!

** slight correction "3-6 2000 word articles each week"

All those complaining are mainly those who don't have long term goals, they will quit very early, that's for sure!
I still remember when i started as a trainee chef in 2001, it was really hard and i really put all efforts and time to achieve the goals i set...I wanted to be exec chef! And yes after 11 years my dream became true, I was finally exec chef of 2 famous 5 stars hotel in Mauritius + i got the opportunity to travel the world too!
It was really worth the pain at the beginning!
Now my dream is to teach youngs and people who want to learn from my experience, it is again very hard to have just started but i am positive about being successful one day!
Thanks for sharing your experience with us all @cryptoctopus!
@progressivechef

I definitely relate with information overload, to the point of feeling frozen by it!
There's so many options & things I'm interested in & yet, frozen...often by not knowing when to stop taking in information!
Maybe I just need to drift along a little longer.

I've only started dipping my toes into Steemit, while reading a book on it (that I think you may have co-authored actually!), but I already believe I'll love it once I can find my voice & stop getting overwhelmed being a knowledge sponge!

very nice,.,.,.,.,.

Hahaha your name can relate to your comment!?

Sorry you didn't enjoy the read. :)

with internet today we can receive so many information in second and because of it there is like 90% of people have information overload. i like your learning pyramid, by my experience its true that then you teach someone material then you learn more about this material yourself and understand it better. Action is must have, because idea/knowledge without action is just idea :)

wow,,,,,,,,,,,.............

A feel a lot of positivity coming from your post . And very motivational for those that are struggling now . I also have started a business with my brother recently and man , it's a struggle and lots of time and investments are going on but reading this makes me not want to give up . You start to learn slowely from your mistakes to make your business stronger , every successful person goes through mistakes and learns from them . But with Steem , it helps you to expand and learn from one another . Thanks for that !

Yes I agree, this guy gives a loads of positivity :)

I have been in Steemit for only two months, I was struggling with monetization of my WordPress blogging before Steemit, but here my posts (in Turkish) started earning immediately

It was the very same information overload for me when I first came in contact with Amazon-FBA. And me simple-loving brain wasn't able to take the information. Than, because it was easier to understand I started a dropshipping business, but still there was an overload of information and it took me months of daily reading and researching until I got the whole idea - months of lost money and wasted time.

I wished too, that I would have known steemit at this time, as it was the very same time when steemit was founded. But I am still more than happy, that I found it 3 weeks ago.

I hope that you will do a blog post about your "Last remark..."

Because... well, I feel I have always had trouble with that, because on many things I would never get started. But, then again, if I didn't have a clear idea in my mind what I was going to do, I would just waste my time and materials doing nothing. err... getting nothing done, except more sawdust.

But often, the act of turning wood into sawdust would give much better understanding of what I wanted to accomplish / how to do it.

Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts.

Well, I'm gonna be 25 this year and I'm sort of in this realm. Gave up on a regular job and I'm still trying to make a living blogging outside of Steemit. Luckily Steemit came and helped me a little financially.