Information Overload

I started today with a simple, albeit lofty goal: cure information overload.  The problem is this: I read too many articles, and the more I read, it seems, the less information I retain. Here is my solution (perhaps "experiment" is more appropriate).

First, let me explain my "readflow"- that is, the way that I consume online articles. The process is as streamlined as possible. Most all of the information I consume is fed to Google Reader, so I don't have to constantly scour the web for items of interest. When I come across an article I'd like to read, I tag it "instapaper", and via this recipe from ifttt, that article is automatically fed to my Instapaper account, which is set up to deliver a compilation of all of my unread articles to my Kindle every Friday morning. It sounds like a lot of work, but once it's set up, the result is remarkably friction-free, and therein lies the bulk of the problem.

It's a remarkable time we live in, having access to so much invaluable information. Want to read the latest article from a professor of philosophy at Berkley? How about catching up on neuroscientists' latest claim of eradicating the concept of free will? Perhaps you want to catch up on NFL news, or find out whether the latest HBO series is worth watching? It's all at your fingertips. Be careful, though- if you're not selective enough, you'll soon be reading so many articles your brain may feel flooded. This is my problem.

Here, I hope, is the solution: I will begin to rate each article I read on a simple scale of one to five, based on how important it is to me that I retain the information contained in each article. If given a one, it's not important enough to spend any more time on. If given a five, I thoroughly enjoyed the text, and would like to retain as much as possible. Here's what I'll do based on my ratings:

• For a rating of (1), no further action is needed. The text does not intrigue me.
• For a rating of (2), I'll simply say, out loud, a very brief summary of the article, focusing on the bullet points.
• For a rating of (3), I will give a slightly in-depth summary (again, this is out loud, to myself). 
• For a rating of (4), I will "bookmark" this article in my mind, and make it a point to bring it up in conversation (actual, face-to-face conversation) the next time I'm with someone to whom the topic may be interesting. 
• For a rating of (5), I will star the article in Instapaper, which, via Instapaper's settings, sends the article to my Evernote account). From Evernote, I can write a summary of the article, at the end of the article itself. This way, all of the most important articles (and only the most important articles) are all in Evernote, with a personal summary at the end of each.

Each tactic is designed to increase memory retention based on the importance of the article. Obviously, I'm much more likely to retain information from a text in which I wrote a summary than one in which I simply verbalized the bullet points and moved on.

I'll use this tactic for a month or so, and give an update on how well it works.

The Perfect Day

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A few days ago, I said goodbye to my daughter. She’s moving across the country, and while I intend to follow her, I’ll be a few weeks behind. On her last day in Florida, we decided the appropriate goodbye to the Sunshine State would be spent at the beach, watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.

Afternoon gave way to evening, and my daughter’s playdate was not over- and I was beginning to get annoyed. It was getting late. The universe knew that this was my special day with my daughter, and yet it did not care. It mocked my plans, and I was left to grumble to myself until they finally left.

We hurried to the car, sped down the road, and hoped and prayed to make it to the beach before the sunset. The feeling of annoyance still permeated every bone in my body- until my daughter pointed out the clouds. What a magnificent sight to behold, if you’ve never witnessed the awesome power of Florida clouds. We started taking snapshots as we sped down the road. The annoyance started to fade. I no longer cared about making it “on time.”

We stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate. Though she’d had it before, this is the first time it came in a cup that looked just like the ones Daddy brings home from work. She felt like such a big girl, and made me take pictures of Starbucks to commemorate her first “coffee” at Starbucks. When we finally made it to the beach, it was not only pitch dark, but the clouds now covered every inch of the sky, blanketing the beach in a darkness usually reserved for haunted houses. As it turns out, we had to put the camera away. I then realized we were the only souls on the beach- it became our playground, and so it began. The play.

We removed our shoes and ran to the water. Soon, she began chasing me, as I screamed in feigned horror at the six-year-old who was trying to get me. We fell to our knees on the sand of Clearwater beach, exhausted and laughing. We made sand angels. A few minutes later, we were up again, she chasing me and throwing sand at my back. We had a sandball fight. We made a sandcastle. We walked through the water, hand in hand. Then she said it.

“Daddy, this is the best night of my life.”

She would utter those words several times more throughout the next hour or so, and each time, my heart melted. I took a break, under the pretense of being exhausted, when in reality I simply wanted to watch my flesh and blood frolick in the sand. She ran with reckless abandon, laughed like no one was watching, and flung herself into the sand, laughing even more hysterically each time. This was my daughter, and tonight, this was our beach, this was our night, this was our world. And it was perfect.

On Thinking Like a Child

The other day, my daughter’s kindergarten class needed an assistant. Her mother had volunteered to help the class prepare a garden bed outside of their classroom- it was full of weeds and unprepeared soil, and needed to be tended to. When she woke feeling ill that day, I was volunteered in her place. This annoyed me. I had SO much work to do- how dare I be interrupted! So it was with reluctance that I strolled into the classroom that day.
Immediately, I was met with my daughter’s typical adorating smile when I walked in. Soon we were toiling in the garden with a few other members of the class. The kids began to turn the weed pulling into a treasure hunt. We had to eliminate the weeds in order to find the real treasures. Before long, they were pulling up a shell or two here and there, and we began to mount a pile of booty. The feeling of annoyance began to fade, and I joined in the excitement of the hunt. Eventually, I lost myself in the wonderment of the moment, and the kids’ mood enveloped me. The work didn’t matter; the petty world surrounding us didn’t matter- we created our own finite yet fantastic reality that afternoon. I left the class refreshed, renewed, and smiling. It was a great gift that they gave to me.
Since, I’ve tried to remember that lesson throughout each day. My troubles are a speck in the cosmos, and infinitely trivial. So where’s the harm in letting the toils of the day slide from your mind, and creating a small, amazing reality in which you embrace yourself, your surroundings, and the world at large?