Ask HN: Information overload

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3110933

by navs • 15 years ago

5 5 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I try to keep up-to-date with as much tech news as possible. I follow a fair share of blogs and news sites on google reader but there's just too many. Between google reader, twitter and HN, there's simply too much to go through in one day.

I'm open to any suggestions on how to handle this information overload.

revorad• 15 years ago

Just don't read for a few days. It's a really nice feeling to come back and find that actually it's not all that interesting. And thanks for the reminder, my fast is overdue.

Sato• 15 years ago

Let me take an example, the recent fund money dry-up talks ignited by WSJ.

Even if you spend a week at Tahoe lake. You can follow up here(check RSS feeds). http://cuotcher.com/topic/Venture_capital

Information source is an aggregation of our private alpha testers' twitter streams, and only filtered interesting articles are notified. Let me know if you are interested.

centdev• 15 years ago

I try and take an information break a few times a week where I'll let a day or 2 go by in which I don't check any tech news. Information is dripped fed to people nowadays anyway. So its always great to see that every new post in my reader is something completely new.

rjd• 15 years ago

Heres a tip : "things don't actually move that fast"

It may seem like the industry is screaming along but its mainly media hype. The important things will take a few years to get where they need to be, I dare you to pick any ground breaking technology and I'd bet if you missed 6 months it wouldn't hurt you one bit. You'd see a few flash in the pan success stories, but mainly things just chug along.

And thats the key to information overload, understanding you can just stop for a few days, a week, what ever, it won't matter. Remove the addictive nature of it. Make sure its a pleasure and not a chore.

For myself I've moved from blogs to aggregators now to get the best articles. I don't need all the articles, just the best. I could go several places for that (reddit, digg, slashdot). But I come to hacker news most, primarily because the conversation threads are of a higher standard. I can learn x10 more from a thread than I can an article.

I've also found curated aggregators on my iPad extremely useful, I'm talking to Zite, Flip Board, Feedly etc... theres something casual and relaxing about them. I recommend getting a tablet, I've never used an android one but I assume its just as good as my iPad.

karterk• 15 years ago

I used to feel the same way a few months back. However, due to some personal reasons, I had to be more or less completely offline for two weeks. When I came back, guess what, I realized I hadn't really missed anything major.

There is an insane amount of news getting generated - but most of it is just noise. The trick that I follow is to pick a few areas that I am really interested in and find good sources/websites where the signal to noise ratio is low. Even good blogs don't produce useful articles all the time.

Another thing that I do is - every morning I quickly scan and stash off articles I want to read, and then I read them up properly later in the day. Trying to read everything will just not allow you to get any productive work done!

Ask HN: Information overload

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