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The myth of "keeping up"
Do you have a stack of books, journals, manuals, articles, API docs, and blog printouts that you think you'll get to? That you think you need to read? Now, based on past experience, what are the odds you'll get to all of it? Half of it? Any of it? (except for maybe the Wired magazine)
So you let the stack of "things to read" pile up, then eventually when the pile gets to high you end up tossing half of it--or worse, moving it to a deeper "stuff to read someday stack. We have selective amnesia about what we'll ever get to, but mainly because most of us keep feeling like we have to keep up! Keep up with what?
You can't keep up. There is no way. And trying to keep up will probably just make you dumber.You can never be current on everything you think you should be. You can't simultaneously be current on:
Technology
Current events
Pop culture
Professional practices
Health/fitness/diet trends
And on and on and on...
Why do we pressure ourselves? Why do we constantly feel like we're struggling to keep up, yet never succeeding? I remember when Java 1.02 came out (the first public release), and it had 200 classes. You could fit the entire class library in the same space as Miss January (magazine centerfold). But then 1.1 came out and the API more than doubled, to 500 classes. It no longer fit on a centerfold, but you could get it on a wall poster. With 200 classes, you really could master the entire API. With 500, it took some effort, but you could at least be familiar with just about everything, given enough time. But then... by Java 1.4, the library had swelled to 2300 classes. And today? It's something like 3500 classes just in the Standard Edition (not including the mobile and enterprise extensions). You could wallpaper an entire room with the class library.
By the year 2000, it had become impossible for even a Sun Java engineer--someone creating the API--to be familiar with everything in the standard library. Yet the rest of us were feeling guilty. Like we were falling behind. Like we weren't hardcore Java programmers.
So... it's time to let that go. You're not keeping up. I'm not keeping up. And neither is anyone else. At least not in everything. Sure, you'll find the guy who is absolutely cutting-edge up to date on some technology, software upgrade, language beta, whatever. But when you start feeling inferior about it, just think to yourself, "Yeah, but I bet he thinks Weezer is still a cool new band..."
Besides letting go, what else can we do to combat Information Anxiety? I have just a few tips, but I'm hoping you'll add more:
Find the best aggregators
Aggregators become increasingly more important. Finding the right person, business, web site, etc. who does the best job of filtering (attenuating) in a specific area adds time to your life.
Get summaries
Publisher Joe Wikert recently blogged quite positively about a service called getAbstract, that offers online book summaries. Initially skeptical, Joe found getAbstract to be a tremendous time saver. (I haven't checked it out, but I tend to trust Joe's advice)
Cut the redundancy!
Do you really need three news magazines? Do you have to subscribe to every technical journal? Get with your friends or colleagues and divide up the main ones. Each person is responsible for subscribing to and keeping up with just one, letting the others know IF there's something in a particular issue worth a read.
Unsubscribe to as many things as possible
Like the previous point, you probably have way too much redunancy in both your printed and online subscriptions. Again, if you're using the right aggregators, they'll tell you when something is worth it. For print, you can save some trees if you give up more of your physical newspapers and magazines.
Recognize that gossip and celebrity entertainment are black holes
It's like watching a car accident despite our best intentions... we just can't help look, so the more you can stay away from the publications that document every personal detail of every music and film star the better. Let that be your guilty pleasure for when you're at the dentist's office...
Pick the categories you want for a balanced perspective, and include some from OUTSIDE your main field of interest
Better to have one design magazine (architecture, product design, graphic design, etc.) (regardless of whether you're a designer or not), one news magazine, one arts magazine (music, photography, etc.), and one technology/lifestyle magazine (Wired, Make, etc.) than to get rid of everything but your three software development journals. Keeping up with a different field is sometimes just as useful (if not more) than keeping up with your current one.
Be a LOT more realistic about what you're likely to get to, and throw the rest out.
Don't file it. Don't store it. What you don't have piling up you can't feel guilty about. Some people put little height limits on their "to read" stack. (OK, when it gets as high as that drawer, I must throw out the oldest 50%...)
In any thing you need to learn, find a person who can tell you what is:
* Need to know
* Should know
* Nice to know
* Edge case, only if it applies to you specifically
* Useless
Too many product manuals, tech docs, books, etc. include everything without necessarily giving you the "weighting" for how imporant each thing is.
Finally, are WE part of the problem? Are we overwhelming our users with documentation? Or are we part of the solution to their info anxiety? We're the ones that should be helping our users really focus on the things they need at any stage. While we all recognize that we are stressed for time and on info overload, we tend to think our users have all the time in the world to figure it all out (RTFM).
There's an opportunity for all of us to help our users (or start a business around helping people reduce the info overload/pressure-to-keep-up stress most of us feel).
In the meantime, take a deep breath and repeat after me, "I will never keep up. Keeping up is a myth." And if it makes you feel any better, add, "John isn't keeping up either."
Once we let go of trying to be more-current-than-thou, we can spend more time on things that really matter. Like learning to Ollie.
(And thanks to Miles Davies for the spectacular tip from an earlier post: "stop trying to ollie. get zen on its ass...be point b.")
Posted by Kathy on April 29, 2006 | Permalink
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Comments
I was reading about lean manufacturing recently - they care a lot about reducing places where inventory builds up, and they strongly advocate having material delivered just in time, instead of being bought/manufactured in advance and stored until you need it. Applying this to my book-buying habits, my conclusion was that I should stop buying books unless I was sure I was going to read them within the nnext week, and that using something like Amazon Prime to enable this would actually make financial sense for me, let alone psychological sense (as in the good points that you mention).
I'm pretty dubious about the summary idea - I bet there are better ways to get concise information about interesting new ideas. (Reading blogs, for example.) But I haven't tried it, so maybe there's something there...
Posted by: David Carlton | Apr 29, 2006 5:18:27 PM
Great post - thank you!
Blogger doesn't support trackback (grrr) so I've posted my reference here, along with an idea of my own for getting rid of the "to read" pile.
http://liminalworld.blogspot.com/2006/04/keeping-up.html
Posted by: Ingrid | Apr 29, 2006 6:38:16 PM
Great points, Kathy. I can't help but feel you somehow got a look at my nightstand...the one that's piled high with magazines and books! The book summary program you mentioned from my earlier blog post, getAbstract, is going to be a huge time-saver for me going forward. I've already read about 8 or 9 summaries and feel I got the key points from each book. I'd also like to add my two cents in about Google News. I've got about a dozen different phrases I've set up there for searches throughout the day. I also find that I'm adding/deleting those over the course of any given month. It's a great way to let Google automatically do the searching for you across any topic you can think of.
Posted by: Joe Wikert | Apr 29, 2006 7:11:54 PM
Don't worry about having an empty inbox.
So I might have a pile of books and I want to read them, but I don't have any plans to when. That's okay.
Posted by: Jason Yip | Apr 29, 2006 8:04:31 PM
I do have a stack of tech books I need to read, yet if they only had sub sections to each chapter outlining what you should know to continue on (Just in time learning) then when I have time I can come back to the other "In-Depth" section.. Instead I need to go through each page plucking out the important elements.
I now focus on work related material which really narrows it down, yet I do come across people who "think" they are bleeding edge on every subject, then again, I dont consider the glow of my monitor screen to be my only source of "natural" light :) .
Posted by: Simon | Apr 29, 2006 9:03:58 PM
Thank you for a great post, Kathy.
This problem is one that most people face and is made worst in business by free trade publications. Publishers of these "rags" make their money off circulation and advertisment. They then strongly push their magazine or newsletter into as many peoples piles as possible. I get four or five of these each week at work and can't seem to stop delivery. I usually scan the covers and then toss them.
Posted by: Earl Moore | Apr 29, 2006 9:24:40 PM
it took me 6 months to learn how to ollie. after around 4 yrs of skating, on and off, i learned how to kick-flip, fakie kick-flip, shuvit, hardflip, shuv-it body 180, frontside and backside 180 and etc....all of them not too well. If only i concentrated on ollieing well...Being able to execute flawless ollies and doing them real high would have been much better. Trying to keep up is cool but being able to take a basic technique/technology and exploit it is invaluable
Posted by: aaron | Apr 29, 2006 9:41:00 PM
Earl - they make great mess catchers if you have young kids who like to paint, or if you enjoy a good barbecue, scrunch a few up to make kindling. Rolled up, they're pretty useful when a wasp flies into the bathroom while you're sat down. They'd make great ballast if you flew hot air balloons. Many uses! :-)
I tend to have 2 books on the go at any one time - one to take to work and read at lunchtime and in the secure room when I'm waiting for a particularly long grep or sql query to deliver its results, and one at home to leave in the bathroom for when I'm sitting on the throne. Even if they only get read in tiny bite-sized bits, they'll get read eventually. If I can get a book as an audiobook or mp3, even better - that goes on my iPod for my drive to & from work.
Posted by: Matt Moran | Apr 30, 2006 12:52:10 AM
a great way to increase free time is to not read blogs by internet know-it-alls who tell people how to write web applications when they've never debugged a line of code in their lives . or blogs by some unknown person who apparently has discovered the holy grail of programming, and apparently everything you use now sucks.
Posted by: bleargh | Apr 30, 2006 1:26:01 AM
Hi,
in your article you talk about:
Things you Need to know, Should know, Nice to know,
Edge case, only if it applies to you specifically
Useless.
What would you consider to be important in each category? I mean not only in your professional career, but in life itself?
Posted by: polarfox | Apr 30, 2006 3:04:38 AM
Great post Kathy. You have put words to my thoughts. Actually, I've been reading magazines that were piling up at home since 2005 :)
This is an issue that has been bugging me for some time now. I've always been the kind of person who likes being informed about many different issues: technology, politics, music, entertainment, sport, games... you name it. When I was younger and had no access to a lot of that information (I live in a small city outside of the US) I felt left out, and had hopes for a time when access to that information would be easy. Well, that time has arrived, and now I have access to more information than I ever wished I had. And it's overwhelming! I just can't keep up. It's very frustrating, especially when you see that many people seem to be able to handle the great deal of information we're exposed to these days. When I read bloggers that work in many different projects, master dozens of programming languages, actually have time to blog and have a life... Of course, I now they're smarter and better organized than I am, but still...
I mean, sometimes I spend a couple of hours every evening just reading blog posts, news and articles. And it's not like I spend a great deal of time reading every one of them. And besides, appart from trying to keep up, I'd like to add that one still wants to have a life, go to the movies, see live bands, do sports, enjoy some time with friends and family...
As Kathy says, I guess the only answer is admitting there is no way to keep up. But it's a hard thing to do, I'm afraid. I genuinely want to do all those things!
Posted by: Aitor Imaz | Apr 30, 2006 3:37:42 AM
That's me! That's me!!
Posted by: kevin rutherford | Apr 30, 2006 3:41:22 AM
I'll just quote a relevant part of an article I wrote (click on my name for the full version):
"There is so much we can learn that becomes useless in the mid- to long-term. It's often surprising how important things soon become dated. Generally yesterday's news doesn't matter today.
"By realising this and purposely staying a step behind with most things, we can often find ourselves several steps ahead on the important things."
Posted by: Alan Pritt | Apr 30, 2006 6:13:44 AM
I am constantly bombarding my partner with interesting emails and conversational tidbits. Every few weeks he says, "Really... I CAN'T read them all. I can't even THINK about them all. Do you have any idea how many tech manuals I have to read...?"
We now have a workaround: I send him interesting emails with a 1-paragraph (at most) synopsis, maybe some quotes, and a link. If he's interested (or has time), he's click the link. Unfortunately, my interest level is FAR more widespread than his: he rarely clicks the link.
Someone once asked him, "What RSS feeds do you read?" To which he answered, "My girlfriend is my RSS feed. I don't need others anymore".
Posted by: Lauren Muney | Apr 30, 2006 8:39:29 AM
Who says I'm not keeping up?
Posted by: john | Apr 30, 2006 9:41:06 AM
Hmm...that stack on the left at the top of the article certainly looks like my nightstand. My book pile is at 18, but I will get through all of them just because I have been a lifelong book junkie.
I don't worry about keeping up. I read for pleasure and technical knowledge. I have to admit that RSS feeds and blogs are certainly a time sink, but then again they have a certain entertainment value as well.
Posted by: Mike Drips | Apr 30, 2006 9:56:48 AM
The funniest thing is, I've kept this post open in a tab in Firefox for three days now, saying to myself "I must get round to reading that...". Glad I did though!
Posted by: Steph Gray | Apr 30, 2006 10:19:34 AM
Nice work Kathy. This is a real issue for a lot of people. Their productivity suffers because "keeping up" robs them of their focus on the important priorities. Oh, did I say "a lot of people". I meant me. ; )
Here's a couple things I've done to break the habit. And the habit is easy to feed these days with so much media available over the wire. So, primarily these tips apply to the digital space:
I use a digital timer on my desktop to limit my morning email and reading/bookmarking of RSS feeds and News to 30 minutes. When that timer ticks off zero, I'm done. Many software timers are available as freeware/shareware. I use XNote Stopwatch.
When I tag (Del.icio.us) an article that looks worth my time I use "toread" and a priority tag. For example "priority1", "priority2", etc... Then in my Del.icio.us inbox I create subscriptions with the tags "toread+priority1", etc... After a few months of tagging this way, I discovered what I really wanted to read and what I didn't. I stopped tagging those topics that sat in box inbox collecting virtual lint.
This last one helps keep the pile pruned and again provides insight into what reading/viewing/listening I think is important when I discover it and what I actually do with it after it finds a home on my hard drive. Saved searched is the key.
You can do this with Windows Search, Copernic 2 Beta, Google Desktop, etc. I created a saved search for the following:
1. All Media (mpg, avi, wmv, mp3, mp4, mov, jpg) Last 7 Days
2. All Proposed Reading (pdf, doc, txt, html) Last 7 Days
3. All Files, for example downloaded programs. (zip, exe, etc) Last 7 Days
Then every 7 days, I review what each search turns up and decide what's worth keeping that I haven't gotten to yet. Sure, with today's huge hard drives I could keep everything. But this is about the psychological factors you write about, not gigabytes. Works for me.
Cheers.
Posted by: Randy | Apr 30, 2006 11:01:51 AM
My personal filters for technology publications are:
1. Is this (magazine|article|book) likely to be useful to me in the next 60 days? If not, then I ask:
2. Is it likely to be useful to my company in the next six months? If so, I bookmark it in delicious and/or put it in my someday/maybe list e.g.:
todo.someday: implement wicked cool Ajaxy foo widget on the bar subsystem; learn how at [url or info where I can find it]
I still have to many back issues of the New Yorker on my nightstand, but at least I don't have tech anxiety. :)
Also, I just remembered that I set a goal this week to not comment on any blog posts (another time sink), so I swear this is the last one, dammit! :)
Posted by: Derek Scruggs | Apr 30, 2006 11:30:22 AM
Thanks a lot for this article. So often I go to sleep with a very big anxiety that Im not learning enough, fast enough or broad enough.
I sometimes try to realisticaly rationalize to myself that it isn't possible, but on the web it looks as though everyone knows everything there is to know about Ajax, CSS, Design, Business, Ruby, Women, etc.
It's great to hear I'm not the only one and really appreciate this post.
Cheers
Posted by: Danny Halarewich | Apr 30, 2006 11:58:40 AM
you were pointing to an increasing problem of our time.
and the more we go, the more the facilites are allowing us to consume, or, at least think we are consuming more data, more experience with out needing to leave our desk...the anxiety leads to more consumption?
and isn't blog -this extraordinary phenomena demonstrate it the most?
i was reading your tips, for I'm totally addicted while the pile of texts, book, copies of articles, keeps on getting higher and messier a i speak...
an intelligent system will have to be created (using algorithmic intelligent as well as human aid such as Aggregators for helping us cope with this over flow -for i don't see us human -curious creatures as we are, getting off this addiction)
but thanks for the interesting practical insights :)
Posted by: moon | Apr 30, 2006 12:21:10 PM
Given that the world of work is moving towards ad-hoc teams getting together for a project and trying to be more than the sum of their parts, "do I know enough?" could be the wrong thing to be worried about.
The questions to ask might be more like: Am I able to contribute what I do know to a team? Am I able to synthesise someone else's point of view with my own? Do I have the social skills to bring my knowledge to bear or do I just withdraw and try to do my own thing? If I'm in a team that ends up being less than the sum of its parts, how much of that is my fault and what can I do about it?
Posted by: in a blur | Apr 30, 2006 12:31:49 PM
Just thinking it is helpful for some of us... I'm using a great blog aggregator called blogbridge.
Posted by: David Castañeda | Apr 30, 2006 2:14:40 PM
I read in another blog post once how many of the greatest works of literature were created before the internet was even envisioned. I think that's important to remember in our day and age, in which we are experiencing a virtual deluge of information which overwhelms any capacity we have to assimilate so much. I can do better myself at remembering to be more patient and realistic, and I will. Still, articles like this one are necessary reminders.
One other thing I try to remember is something that I learned from D&D and which I believe applies to real-life. I think that everyone has the same number of character creation points as everyone else. Maybe it's 100 points--which can be divied up between all of our various qualities, talents, etc. Thus, someone who is extraordinarily good looking will almost certainly lack in other areas. In my experience it is impossible to have someone who is EVERYTHING all at once: beautiful/handsome, brilliant, kind, loyal, hardworking...etc. It doesn't happen. That concept can be extended to include the illusion of know-it-alls. The reality is that if someone seems to know everything about all the bleeding-edge stuff we'd all like to know, then they must've had to give up other things for that knowledge--if not from a function of mortality and finiteness, then certainly from an inherent limitation imposed on us by time.
Thanks for the outstanding article!
p.s. The above comments were also excellent so I'm grateful for them as well.
Posted by: Abe Burnett | Apr 30, 2006 2:50:24 PM
Kathy, I have just gone to my "Newsletter" folder in Outlook and unsubscribed from more than 50% of them. You are right on the money and as a marketer it brings home to me how overloaded with information many of us already are.
Even with "permission" marketing it is going to be a challenge to get through to many information workers.
Posted by: David Koopmans | Apr 30, 2006 4:07:35 PM
One of the problems is managing multiple interests/hobbies with work. Something has to give, and the key is to not let that get to you. I used to get very frustrated that I could only do a subset of all the things I wanted to do.
Posted by: Deepak | Apr 30, 2006 4:34:11 PM
Great article.
I've found that by giving myself a set amount of time to do research (tech.memeorandum, slashdot, digg, etc.) I'm able to stay current without getting too sucked in. Whenever I get an article sent to me during the day I continue to focus on the task at hand and use my "research time" (1-2hrs a day) to look into it the next day.
Posted by: Tim Bowen | Apr 30, 2006 4:45:27 PM
I do keep up on all the things that really matter to me. The thing is, over the years the list of what really matters has gotten quite a bit smaller :-)
More advice ~ lose the TV if you haven't already. There's not really anything on it that's important to keep up with.
Posted by: Cyndi L | Apr 30, 2006 4:55:59 PM
I started reading EVERY comment, then quickly switched to skim. I find I skim so much because of the information overload, thanks for this post reminding us to EDIT!
If you like your news/gossip/commentary pre-edited for you, I suggest a subscription to The Week magazine and you can cancel all your newspapers and news magazines!
Posted by: Kelly | Apr 30, 2006 7:38:11 PM
Thanks for the cutting-edge list of tips on how to deal with information. I've asked myself a lot of questions about the efficiency on logistics of information. Eventhough I consume, there is a big blob left over. It won't fit in my "fridge" before it turns bad. But somehow it tends to have a useabilty nagging feeling, like vintage stuff. Maybe it will be back in fashion again, revive.
Now I distinguish between consumption-info (throw it away after one run) and lasting-info (keep it if I feel I can use it again). The criteria I use are determined by the basic assumption of this blog: be a passionate user. It gives me the power to determine what I want and need. I felt the larger part of my information overload was caused by what I received as "need to know" and "should know" from others.
Posted by: Renald Chi | May 1, 2006 1:32:46 AM
And what do geeks do when they want to put something on their to-read pile? They del.icio.us the link!
And where to catch what's most "del.icio.used" in the last 24h, 48h, week, month or all-time?
http://populicio.us/
Posted by: Bruno | May 1, 2006 6:22:45 AM
Spooky - I was just about to write a very similar post about technology I use to TRY to keep up to date but I took a deep breath and agreed - I will never keep up. I had a few additional suggestions though including a mobile aggregator for dead time on the Tube and scheduling a Think Day (I can't justify a full scale Bill style Think Week)
Posted by: steve clayton | May 1, 2006 7:46:01 AM
Thanks, Kathy. I feel lots better.
Posted by: I Gallop On | May 1, 2006 9:07:11 AM
Here's a reminder for when you want to buy something, like a book, that you don't need or can't use right away: they call those places "stores" because they store things for you.
The Internet and the public library are also already storing tons of information for you. Why not let them store more? When you want specific information, it'll be easier to find it in one of those places than in the piles on your desk.
As for keeping up, there's always a push-pull between what others think you should know (book publishers, magazine editors, industry movers) and what you need to know for your own goals and personal fulfillment. Ideally, keeping up should be at the service of what you want to accomplish, not simply to keep up with the Joneses.
Posted by: Claire Tompkins | May 1, 2006 11:03:11 AM
I'm fairly good on keeping my tech information inflow limited. Usually with the methods you describe...aggregators, limited subscriptions, etc. I also use some of the techniques from the comments like time-limits on email/list-servs and the like. Although it's great to see the "Need to know; Should know; Nice to know; Edge case, only if it applies to you specifically; Useless" list distilled like that. I'll have to keep it in mind from here on out...
My biggest hurdle is books. I'm being ambitious and taking a year to try to reset my "to read" pile to zero. Basically I'm a) reading at least a book a week this year (and since it's the start of week 18 and I started book 20 this morning, I'm amazingly still on track...hooray for bus commutes to work) and b) I'm not allowed to buy any new books this year.
The exceptions to this are training manuals and if I go to a used book store and turn in books, I can get new ones with that credit. Hey, as long as no money changes hands, I'm not "buying" any new books.
I'm hoping that by the end of the year, my bookshelves will no longer hold any "I'll read it someday" books, as I'll have read them all. And, after a year of being limited on the inflow of new books, I'll hopefully be used to a slower pace of purchasing and will only buy at a rate at which I can consume.
We'll see what happens in early '07 I guess...
Posted by: Katy | May 1, 2006 11:31:46 AM
I have one suggestion for the information burdened: get a life. The refreshing feeling of hiking in the hills and countries linger on my mind. But I have done so little of them it fast becoming other people's life I wish I'm living. Something must be wrong with the list of activities I choose to engage in.
Unfortunately being so overloaded with stuff I have yet to have time to try my own suggestion.
Posted by: Wai Yip Tung | May 1, 2006 11:40:01 AM
OK you made it! I will unscriber from your blog... you are absolutelly right...
Posted by: TechnoHmmmm | May 1, 2006 11:40:35 AM
Quick suggestion (for those tracking info via RSS): add Feed Rinse to the mix (http://feedrinse.com), and get aggressive about categorically filtering/blocking content in your feeds that you find irrelevant. Great Post.
Posted by: Aaron | May 1, 2006 2:51:39 PM
hey, don't be knocking Weezer...
Posted by: Christian | May 1, 2006 3:55:20 PM
Thanks for these excellent suggestions. We've been needing some good ideas for managing time. Wai Tip Yung had a good idea to refresh the mind but I don't think that it really helps with keeping up!
Posted by: Catnabbit | May 1, 2006 5:58:40 PM
For reference/product manuals - never read them 'til you need them.
For other stuff - read when you can
Don't forget to read for pleasure sometimes (i.e. novels)
I'm too new to blogging to have blog ideas - but is there any tool to do semantic summaries of blog posts? If I can see that all the post says is "Bush bad, Clinton good" I can skip reading the whole thing until I have time for it
Posted by: Tim | May 1, 2006 8:52:35 PM
I have my trusted group of 60 blogs and from there I find the outliers that might be interesting for the topic at hand. If I'm wrong, my audience will soon tell me. After all, the idea is to learn, not to accumulate stuff we;ll never get to.
That's a reason for clearing out the RSS reader and starting afresh with the core. IMO.
Posted by: Dennis Howlett | May 1, 2006 9:14:22 PM
Thanks Kathy. Your post and all the comments that followed has helped me tremendously. I've been having a sort of inferiority complex for so long now, and it is so nice to know I am far from alone. Of course, my comment is just adding to the overflow... ;)
I'm a .NET junkie (I know it has a lot to owe to the Java world), and a book junkie. I literally have over 100 .NET books. If you looked at my collection, you would see bookmarks about 50 pages or so into most of them.
When I first started learning it, I promised myself I would become an expert. These days, I don't think anyone can be much more than a specialist. Jack of all trades / master at none is a truism.
I've been winding down my TV watching, letting series end and not picking up new ones. When they all end, I'll be free from most TV. What a complete waste of time!
I do try to balance technical books with novels, business books and others. I leave most of my novel and business book "reading" these days to "books-on-tape" in the car, which helps a LOT.
Anyway, GREAT article, and as timely as can be. I feel so much better now. Thanks!
Posted by: Mark Freedman | May 1, 2006 9:56:15 PM
I'm glad to have come across this post via Darren Rowse's site. Just today I was staring at my piles of "Things to Read" and thinking about those 300+ emails that "need" to be read. I've certainly turned into an information junkie and I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling this way.
Anyhow, as much I would like to have read all these comments, I definitely have to put it on "the list". Thanks!
Posted by: Maria Palma | May 2, 2006 12:38:19 AM
Here's a quote from the venerable Frederick Brooks book The Mythical Man-Month:
"The computer-related intellectual discipline has exploded as has the technology. When I was a graduate student in the mid-1950s, I could read all the journals and conference proceedings; I could stay current in all the discipline. Today my intellecutal life has seen me regretfully kissing subdiscipline interests good-bye one by one, as my portfolio has continuously overflowed beyond mastery. Too many interests, too many exciting opportunities for learning, research, and thought. What a marvelous predicament! Not only is the end not in sight, the pace is not slackening."
We have no option but to let go and preserve out sanity.
Posted by: sameer borate | May 2, 2006 1:09:53 AM
This article pretty much sums up my blog reading. I am subscribed to way too many blogs... thinking I may be missing out on something and in turn being so overloaded that I'm missing out on something. While I was reading the article, I opened a new tab on my browser... loaded rojo and deleted a few blogs I never get around to reading.
Thanks for the great piece!
Posted by: jasonclick.com | May 2, 2006 9:51:20 AM
My wife's inflexible rule is that I can keep the current issue of a magazine and one prior issue. She has carte blanc to pitch anything else. If I want to keep a magazine for reference, I have to either file it or put it in a bookshelf. At last count, our family of 6 subscribed to 30 magazines, and at least 5 were weeklies. It was the only way to keep the coffe table from collapsing!
Posted by: Sys Admn | May 3, 2006 6:21:26 AM
Kathy, my husband has been sending me links to your blog for a week or so now, thinking I would enjoy them--and I have!
I loved your "happy people" blog (I thoroughly agree with you, btw), I love your ponies (I just made a special little horse netsuke for a Norway (fjord?) pony lover--what is it with those north country ponies??) and I plan to work my way slowly through your blog backlog. (blogclog?)
Keep up the good work, and THANK YOU for sharing your thoughts with the world.
Luann Udell
Posted by: Luann Udell | May 3, 2006 12:29:33 PM
erm, "find the best aggregators". there was no good aggregator. that's why we do newfocus.
http://newfocus.hu/
Posted by: soobrosa | May 4, 2006 6:47:57 AM
Your title -- "the myth of keeping up" -- immediately brought to mind "the myth of not being good enough" ... I struggle with both.
I saw references to consumption in the comments, and this got me thinking about how much of my / our frantic compulsion to keep up is simply another manifestation of our consumption-driven society.
I was also reminded of the mantra "slow down, let go" (which I first heard on an Oriah Mountain Dreamer audio program) as I was reading your post ... I struggle with both [slowing down and letting go].
In conjunction with another of your recent posts, about turn-off-your-TV week, I'm reminded of the Artist's Way, in which one of the weeks in the program is dedicated to a "media diet" wherein one abstains from all media consumption, instead listening to the voice(s) within.
I've been shifting my media diet lately, focusing more on books and less on other media, including blogs ... in fact, yours is one of the few blogs I still read with any regularity.
Speaking of blogs, Matt Cornell has been sharing some ideas about how he has been developing and adapting techniques to process his stack of books in a series of posts, the most recent of which can be found here: http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2006/04/double-your-income-in-year-by-reading.html.
Posted by: Joe McCarthy | May 4, 2006 1:48:41 PM
Quick trick for all the magazines & trade journals that get routed my way at work: I pass them along to the next person on the route list by the end of the day I receive them, period. If I don't have much time to look them over on that day, fine -- probably I didn't need to see them anyway. My logic:
1. These sources usually do not contain the secret of cold fusion or perpetual motion.
2. There will be more material tomorrow.
3. If it's *really* important, I'll see it anyway - on Google News, in The Economist, in an e-mail from a friend, on this blog, or wherever.
That's it. Like Emerson said, you can't go into tomorrow being bothered by your old nonsense. I add: tomorrow likely will have plenty of nonsense of its own, so don't bring extra.
Posted by: Tim Walker | May 9, 2006 7:54:42 PM
Having recently made myself sick, literally, trying to get everything done, including reading & responding to everything and its brother, I can really identify with this post. Thanks.
Posted by: Angie Dixon | May 10, 2006 4:48:22 PM
Take a look at what you are trying to keep up with. I bet most of the things are what I call "people's ideas". A physicist, for example, studies nature's laws, trying to understand things larger than himself.
Especially in the technology field there are so many concepts, ideas, APIs, gadgets, widgets, etc. People write about them, talk, maybe even discuss them, but if you broaden your perspective a little bit and look for what problem actually is solved here, if this will make the world a little bit better, most of the time there is no such thing. Technology for technology's sake.
I attended the JavaOne conference a while ago. I visited their book store, basically a small room with shelfs high up filled with technology/process/programming books. At first I was excited, these books are all so interesting, I thought. Then I turned around, finding even more books that I "should read". From every shelf I could have read at least two or three books. But at this point I realized, I will never be able to read all those. And what if I did? In a while those books will be replaced be the next great thing, anyway, so why not just wait and see what prevails.
The great thing about nature is that it has been around for a while and probably will be there for a while. I'm afraid I can't say this about |place_your_technology_here|.
Posted by: Rico | Jun 3, 2006 2:37:11 PM
I'm starting to wonder why I read this stuff... ;)
Posted by: Guitarm | Aug 17, 2006 6:14:18 PM
Personally I tend to go daily to sites like Digg and Reddit to get my media, I tend to mark a lot of links, mostly on Digg. Those links that I digg usually are related to IT/CS among others. I do not read every single one, nor do I want to. What I do is when I encounter some sort of problem or difficulty (computer engineering student) I have that magnificent reference library at my disposal. I used to have a lot of info anxiety and this approach has helped me. Some time ago Digg removed the profile search feature (allowed you to search within your diggs) but one can use Google to search within Digg (usually faster) by using the site: operator.
Posted by: Francisco | May 4, 2007 4:39:27 AM
