Michael Gilbert has an interesting notion: becoming a knowledge blogger is a good way to practice managing information overload.
The experience of “information overload” has many causes, among which are these three important ones: (1) We don’t know what to do with the information we are getting. (2) We don’t know how to filter and select amongst all that information. (3) We don’t know how to influence the flows of information themselves.
Blogging addresses all three of these causes of the “information overload” experience.
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The operating principle here is this: Most of the inbound flow of information that we have to deal with is unclearly tied to our productive work. If we can shape a small element of our productive work so that it gives us the practice of rapidly discerning the value of various types of information, in a manner that is easily actionable, then we will quickly refine our sense of purpose in a way that improves our filters. By learning how to decide whether or not to blog about something and then what to say about it, we become ruthless in our culling of information and in our selection of sources.
It’s a counterintuitive notion, but I couldn’t agree more. I’ll add the notion that blogging regularly is really great practice for developing a personal, authentic and *brief* online writing style.