Coping With Too Much Wisdom

There is so much wisdom floating around the many e-learning spaces that I've adopted, and only so much time in the day. How does one cope?

The tweets, the blog posts, the podcasts, the news... your daily work and family responsibilities. It's impossible to stay on top of it all, but you can keep in touch with what matters most.

Let me put it this way, just in case you're scanning for headlines:

1] Be Realistic: Realize that you can't catch everything 'as it happens'. Let it be OK, to hear about significant developments a day later.

2] Turn Off Notifiers: Check for content on your schedule. The email, tweets and blog posts will all be there... when the time is right for you to deal with them. Don't let incoming content dictate your schedule.

3] Be Selective: Let your RSS Reader become a portfolio filled with only the richest content. With the right feeds, getting your reader down to 'zero' won't bring relief, but will leave you anxious for more.

4] Take the Time: Ensure that reading/listening a part of your daily routine, rather than an 'always on' torrent of information. Learning with a cup of tea, reminds me that reading is an experience to savor.

5] Remember Why You're Here: Learning isn't a race, it should be a pleasurable experience. If you're racing to keep up with feeds or tweets, maybe it's time to thin your subscriptions.

6] Dig Deep: In our desire to digest more and more, we often let tweets trump richer, deeper, more thoughtful writing. And when we find that elusively rich article or book, we tend to speed read or scan only for the highlights. Do you remember when reading was a pleasurable experience? It still can be.

7] Unplug: Even though Starbucks and McDonalds may offer free wifi, there are other ways to engage with ideas. What real books are you reading? What face-to-face conversations are you having?

8] Remember What Matters Most: Your family, your colleagues, your work, your play... they all matter, and they are each deserving of your time and attention. Connecting with global colleagues is great, but don't do it at the expense of your flesh and blood relationships.

These are but a few things I try to remind myself. Care to add your advice?

Photo Credits: Jah~; Kristen C.

Which changed first? My Brain or the Book?

Has anyone else noticed that books are changing?

Chapters have become strings of bullet points rather than paragraphs. Paragraphs have been condensed to simple-to-read sound-bites on paper. Many books of today provide multiple headings supported by short paragraphs and are page-turners more for their white space and graphic nature than for their engaging content.

Is it because readers don't have the time? Do we fear missing out on something being written or said elsewhere? Amidst the sea of information, I find my eyes continually scanning for keywords and ideas rather than taking time to allow the full of an idea to wash over my brain. Things are changing both in the content and in the way I process the information.

I now scan e-news summaries clicking only the occasional full article; and when reading the full article, settle for the topic sentences rather than giving myself over to the full story. The advertisers think it's a limited attention span, serving up micro-commercials in comparison to the 60 or 90 second ads of my youth. But amidst a world giving itself over to text messages and Twitter, I think something different is going on here. Human beings are processing information differently!

Dare we teach this type of reading? Maybe Father Guido Sarducci's University is closer than we think?