Curbing Info Porn with Batched Reading
by Andre Kibbe, Tools for Thought
Something snapped. Somewhere around early November [2009], I’d been on a Low Information Diet for nearly a month. The first thing I did was dump all of my RSS feeds. Then I prohibited myself from reading books or visiting blogs, forums, podcasts or other infostractions. After weeks of being unplugged, the sense of time recovered was so profound, that every time I decided to add some of my previous feeds back into Google Reader, a little voice inside my head would push back and ask “Why?”. But I gradually added some back in anyway. Then, one day while reading yet another “Top N” post, that little voice amplified: “Is this really the best use of your time?”
I like information. And that’s the problem — I can consume it indefinitely. It’s not a case of information overload, but of information porn: gratuitous reading used to alleviate boredom or anxiety rather than enable positive change or solve a problem. In his recent Lifehack article on information overload, Dustin Wax astutely observes:
Sunday reading
The new rule: No discretionary nonfiction reading during the week. Instead of reading a book for an hour or two each day during the week, I would read the entire book on Sunday, from start to finish, in one sitting. I would read and comment on blogs finishing the book. Instead of toggling to news sites between Monday and Saturday, trying to stay in the loop, I’d buy a copy of one weekly news magazine, The Economist, and read it in one fell swoop (minus the articles deemed unimportant), opting to catch up rather than keep up (I ordinarily would’ve spent dozens of hours following the Gaza incursion alone). If something occurred to me during the week that would be interesting to read up on, I’d look it up and bookmark it for Sunday.
That’s a lot of reading for one day, a least without some serious triage. Last Sunday I dumped more than half of the reading I accumulated during the week. Aside from the obvious benefit of eliminating task switching, having all of the reading visible in one block — rather than distributed throughout the week (10 minutes here, 15 minutes there) — makes your reading commitments extremely conscious.
Reading is no longer an involuntary response to casual stimulation. When you know how much reading you have to look forward to consuming, each item’s relevance gets evaluated much more deliberately. An interesting article you collect on Tuesday may not seem so interesting on Sunday, after it’s passed through a cooling period.
Exceptions:
Notice that one of the exceptions is just-in-time information needed to unstick a current project. Just-in-case information doesn’t count — batch it. Compiling information to motivate action is a crap shoot at best, and is just as likely to provide new rabbit trails instead of closing current ones. Research, as Charlie Gilkey points out, is:
From consuming to producing
Resisting the urge to consume information can be unsettling, especially when there’s no substitute activity to fill the void. In times like these, your task list is your friend. Don’t sit around wondering what you could be doing in the absence of a crutch activity. Either do something productive, do something genuinely recreational, or review what needs to get done. Trust me, there’s never a shortage of more worthwhile activities. The trick is to keep them conscious.
by Andre Kibbe, Tools for Thought
Something snapped. Somewhere around early November [2009], I’d been on a Low Information Diet for nearly a month. The first thing I did was dump all of my RSS feeds. Then I prohibited myself from reading books or visiting blogs, forums, podcasts or other infostractions. After weeks of being unplugged, the sense of time recovered was so profound, that every time I decided to add some of my previous feeds back into Google Reader, a little voice inside my head would push back and ask “Why?”. But I gradually added some back in anyway. Then, one day while reading yet another “Top N” post, that little voice amplified: “Is this really the best use of your time?”
I like information. And that’s the problem — I can consume it indefinitely. It’s not a case of information overload, but of information porn: gratuitous reading used to alleviate boredom or anxiety rather than enable positive change or solve a problem. In his recent Lifehack article on information overload, Dustin Wax astutely observes:
I’ve come to believe that when people talk about “information overload” they’re not really talking about identifying information they can act on, but something entirely different. They’re talking about recreational information – information as entertainment.
Instead of just categorically renouncing information. I decided a few weeks ago that I needed to modify my Low Info Diet.Sunday reading
The new rule: No discretionary nonfiction reading during the week. Instead of reading a book for an hour or two each day during the week, I would read the entire book on Sunday, from start to finish, in one sitting. I would read and comment on blogs finishing the book. Instead of toggling to news sites between Monday and Saturday, trying to stay in the loop, I’d buy a copy of one weekly news magazine, The Economist, and read it in one fell swoop (minus the articles deemed unimportant), opting to catch up rather than keep up (I ordinarily would’ve spent dozens of hours following the Gaza incursion alone). If something occurred to me during the week that would be interesting to read up on, I’d look it up and bookmark it for Sunday.
That’s a lot of reading for one day, a least without some serious triage. Last Sunday I dumped more than half of the reading I accumulated during the week. Aside from the obvious benefit of eliminating task switching, having all of the reading visible in one block — rather than distributed throughout the week (10 minutes here, 15 minutes there) — makes your reading commitments extremely conscious.
Reading is no longer an involuntary response to casual stimulation. When you know how much reading you have to look forward to consuming, each item’s relevance gets evaluated much more deliberately. An interesting article you collect on Tuesday may not seem so interesting on Sunday, after it’s passed through a cooling period.
Exceptions:
- Fiction, which is consciously recreational
- Information needed to currently resolve an impasse on an active project (e.g. “What’s Error Code A73909?”)
- Two-minute reads
- Email and other messaging
Notice that one of the exceptions is just-in-time information needed to unstick a current project. Just-in-case information doesn’t count — batch it. Compiling information to motivate action is a crap shoot at best, and is just as likely to provide new rabbit trails instead of closing current ones. Research, as Charlie Gilkey points out, is:
. . . a prop, folks. Yes, part of the creative process requires that we research whatever we’re thinking about, but if you find yourself nodding your head at what I’m saying, you know that there’s a point in which you have enough information to do something and there’s a point in which you’re using “research” as a way to get around creating. No amount of information or inspiration is going to solve the problem – for the problem has nothing to do with information.
I once attended an interview with screenwriter Mark Fergus (Children of Men, Iron Man) who claimed that he used to watch a dozen or so films as “research” before starting his screenplays. Suspecting that he was procrastinating, he decided to put off watching the reference films until after he completed a first draft. He pointed out that after getting first draft done, he usually had all of the information he needed in the draft to continue without the screenings.From consuming to producing
Resisting the urge to consume information can be unsettling, especially when there’s no substitute activity to fill the void. In times like these, your task list is your friend. Don’t sit around wondering what you could be doing in the absence of a crutch activity. Either do something productive, do something genuinely recreational, or review what needs to get done. Trust me, there’s never a shortage of more worthwhile activities. The trick is to keep them conscious.
