A Healthy and Effective Information Diet

In our fast-paced digital age, the sheer volume of information available at our fingertips can be overwhelming. Just as we carefully choose what we eat to maintain physical health, it’s crucial to curate the information we consume to nurture our mental well-being. A healthy and effective information diet helps us stay informed without becoming overloaded, enabling us to make better decisions, stay focused, and ultimately be more productive. In business, these are priceless virtues.

Useful Information Habits I've Picked Up Over The Years

Consume with the purpose of retaining and taking notes - As professionals and growth-minded individuals, we consume potentially dozens of hours of content per week in the form of books, articles, newsletters, podcasts, and more. At some point a few years ago I fell into the trap of trying to consume more and more without truly asking myself what's the point. Over time I started to forget what I was consuming at a rapid pace, mostly because my attention was degrading. I was paying attention to too many things. Since then, I have tried to really pay attention to what I consume, actively try to listen, and write down my favorite insights. If nothing else, I try to mark down at least one thing that I learned in my notes, to-do list, or an ever-growing list I own called the "Gold Nuggets" which you will learn more about below. Over time, if you are listening to content that does not beg you to write it down somewhere (unless you are consuming content for leisure of course), you might be wasting your time with that content. As I've continuously worked on this habit, I have started to be very selective with what content I consume and truly pay attention - this habit has helped me tremendously.

Have a place for notes you really want to review and remember - One can really expand on this, as I keep my notes fairly simple. I have a list on my Apple Notes app called "Gold Nuggets". That's where I write down very insightful things I read that I want to remember. I review random items from this list every week so I can keep these notes fresh in my mind. An example of a gold nugget would be something like "Prioritization beats efficiency any day of the week" which is an insight I learned from a podcast a long time ago.

Have a list of desired qualities for your life and your business, and review these every week - We all have things we wish we did more of in order to live a life more in tune with our values. For instance, being health conscious - I always need to remind myself to not slouch when I sit down or when I walk, or perhaps I need to get better at saying no so that I can prioritize my business. I write down all of these actions and review them weekly so that, at least at a subconscious level, I can self-correct and live a life that is more true to who I want to be.

Prioritize Intentions - What good is having lists if you don't act on them? I try to have a monthly intention, weekly intention, and daily intention and review these intentions every morning. Moreover, I create new daily intentions for the following day every night, new weekly intentions at the end of the week, and new monthly intentions at the end of the month. For example, this month my intention is to be a little more active and assertive in conversation when talking to people instead of just being a good listener. My weekly intention is to double down on audience KPIs and tasks for my business, and my daily intention is to live in the moment. These intentions could be around business, personal life, or both!

Have a list of all the tools you stumble across - We live in a time where there are new tools published every day whether they are physical tools or software tools and as you stumble across them you might not have time to try them right away but they might be useful later. Simply write down the URL and name of the tool in a list. Bonus if you could also write down what it does in a sentence so that you can quickly find it later.

Have a list just for the sake of writing something down so that you might review or remember it later. If you need to write something down from a piece of content and it doesn't fit in any other list, you could call this your overflow list.

Create an elaborate notes system - I personally write down my notes mostly on Google Keep, and use the search functionality in the app to find notes I need later on. Google Keep is also very fast, simple, and works on all my devices. These are the top characteristics that I look for. However, you can also look for other characteristics such as the ability to turn notes into to-do items (try todoist). On the other hand, if you want your notes to be categorized and linked together so that they help foster a deeper understanding and recall for your brain - you can try out the Zettelkasten method and tools such as Obsidian.