Those who study large scale information databases, i.e. those in the terabyte (10¹²) to the petabyte (10¹⁵) range, suggest that information in the global intellectual inventory is now doubling as fast as every nine months.  This rate of information doubling was supposedly every three years in the late 1990s while in the immediate post World War II period information doubling required decades.

Source : The Basics of Satellite Communications By Joseph N. Pelton

Today, the rate of information growth is doubling very quickly, as fast as every nine months in some fields.

What this means is that if you studied 10 textbooks in 9 months, by the time you’re done with that pile, you’d realize you’ve another pile of 10 textbooks waiting for you to dive into again.

You can see it for yourself.  Everyday, new discoveries are being made, new products being pushed to the market, new problems, new solutions keep coming up.

Some people get inundated by all this but it’s inevitable and at the same time necessary for the human race.

You see, in whatever decisions that we make, we seek to minimize uncertainties and in the process, reduce risk.  In doing so, we need more qualified information.  The better information we get, the better our decision will be.

The abundance of information is also one of the reasons we see more successful people these days – because many of us have easy access to quality information.  If you’re starting a new business, there are tons of good books on entrepreneurship, business processes, sales and marketing, etc.   Many of those books document the blueprints of successful role models who have been there, conquered that.  If you’re learning to be an excellent programmer, there are vast numbers of free resources for you to learn and master almost any type of programming language.

Unless you’re a martian, almost any problem that you’re facing must have been solved by someone else or it could solved by combining and/or improving existing solutions.

So, it is important that you turn your attention towards educating yourself instead of being a TV addict or a game addict, unless that’s primarily what your life is about.

Once you agree that we need to continually learn and take in more information, you might also realize that it is easy to get inundated by the mass of information available out there.  Also, there’re tons of attention grabbing information out there, most of which might not be what you need.

The solution is to be selective.  Be very selective of what information you are looking out for in your life.  Just as you (should) have specific goals and plans for your life, you should be specific about the information you want to gain.

If you know that your goal is to run a successful business, you should look out for information sources that teach you how to do so.  At the onset, you might still be confused, given the large number of choices – here’s the strategy, choose the  most reputable ones to learn from e.g. for running a small business, you will find The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber very useful.  Or, if you’ve been struggling to achieve success but found that time and again, you keep getting knocked to the ground because of the lack of clarity or the right mindset, you need guidance to sort yourself out internally first – in this case, check out Master Your Mind, Design Your Destiny by Adam Khoo.

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” ~ Albert Einstein

The key is this, we need information to increase our level of thinking in order to move on to the next level in life.  Once you know what new information you need to learn, your task is to absorb it as quickly as you can and start taking action.

Start learning!

Probably not, right? Even people who like challenges would be weighed down eventually by things which are overly complex.

Complexity decreases efficiency and more often than not encourages procrastination.  You might have heard of the term “paralysis by analysis”, which simply means that when you analyze too many factors, you get inundated and start procrastinating instead.

Further, complexity wastes a lot of your energy and drains you of whatever initial enthusiasm you might have.

Yes, Life is complex at times.  Problems are complex at times.  Choosing simplicity doesn’t mean denying reality.  It means making the effort to understand that everything complex is made up of many simple things.

Take for example, building a  customized website with good content would seem like a complex project initially.  What you have to do is to identify all the small subtasks that needs to be done and decide on the right sequence.  e.g. identify your niche, research your niche, choose a site theme, hire a freelance coder, etc.

Anything big, once broken down in the smaller tasks will immediately give you a lot of clarity.  Of course, in the process, you will also begin to realize that you might lack certain skill sets and this could be the time to acquire them or outsource the task.

When things are broken down and simple enough, you achieve them more quickly and easily, building your self-esteem in the process and increasing your motivation.  The converse is true, when they are too complex, you get overwhelmed, lose your momentum and end up in the undesirable state of procrastination.

So, if there is any area of your life which you’re experiencing procrastination, it might be useful for you to break up the tasks into smaller, and more easily achievable sub-tasks.  Achieving many small sub-tasks gives you a sense of accomplishment and keeps your motivation high and before you know it, you’d have completed the task which you were previously procrastinating.

STOP!

How did you end up here?  Something caught your attention?

You know what, mortal? I’ve successfully stolen a few seconds from your life.

Fortunately for you, reading this will be rewarding.

Because as you’re reading this, for once, you’re probably more aware of what you’re now reading.  Think about the myriad of content that competes for your attention everyday and everywhere, which you mindlessly indulge in.  Does it raise to your awareness how much time was possibly wasted?

One of the ironies today is that while we have advanced technological tools to leverage our time to do more, many people actually achieve less.  There is lesser contentment, lesser fulfillment.  More procrastination.

We all know that procrastination has robbed success, achievement and fulfillment from many people including ourselves.  And it still continues to do so today, and will most likely stay this way until we make a concerted effort towards fixing the root causes.

I’ve come to realize the central reason why procrastination is so challenging to overcome is that it has multiple causes.  Some people procrastinate because of a lack of a clear goal; others don’t take action because of disempowering beliefs about their abilities.  Some hold back from doing what they need to do because of a painful bad experience in the past.

For most of us today, especially the younger generation, it is the overwhelming amount of content that screams for our attention every moment.  DISTRACTIONS! They’re everywhere.

Just think of some of the things that catch your attention everyday :

• Instant messenger chats
• TV commercials and programs e.g. Drama serials, Sitcoms, etc.
• Unsolicited email – some people are actually drawn by the content
• Eye-catching magazines
• Attention grabbing headers in the newspapers
• Social networking stuff – twitter, facebook, friendster, etc.
• Internet forums, where discussions occasionally ends up in a lot of off-topic banter.
• Reading online articles (not) like this one!
• And the list goes on…

I’m not saying that the aforementioned stuff are bad – the question is whether it is useful for you to spend your time on it.

If it’s not, then think about how much time had been wasted on all those activities.  If you’ve made wrong decisions in your purchases, you’d have wasted money.  But money can always be earned with your diligence and creativity.  My view is that Time is the most important resource that we have.  You can’t turn back the clock nor can you buy an elixir.  So if you’d wasted your time, it is gone FOREVER.  It’s the only real scarcity in life.

So, use your time wisely by blocking out distractions and taking charge of your attention.  If you’re distracted easily because you don’t have a goal or definite purpose, then use your time wisely to quieten yourself to discover and decide on that.

Distractions might be enjoyable and even cathartic if you have a heavy burden of worries and problems.  But always remember that problems don’t get solved by plainly seeking tension relief; our life only becomes better when we seek solutions and work harder.  When things go wrong, work harder, not less.

I’m not going to give you 10 tips to block out distractions because I believe you have to decide what works best for you.  More importantly, the motivation should be intrinsic.

But I’d share with you something.  If you’d read Stephen Covey’s books, he mentioned that the way to say “No” to unwelcomed requests vying for your time is to have a BIGGER “Yes” in your heart.  What this means for you is this – For you to say “No” to things that scream for your attention is to have a bigger “Yes” to the things that matter.

Personally, when I encounter an attention-grabbing and perhaps pleasurable time-waster, I’d say to myself “I have better uses for my time.”

So while this reading has probably taken up several minutes of your life, you know it is an investment once it begins to make more sense to you.  Your return on investment will be much higher once you begin to govern your attention.

So, run along now, you have better uses for your time.