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Vol. 72, No.
3, March 1999
Strategies to Manage Information Overload
As the world produces more information
daily than we can hope to digest, it has become increasingly
important to manage and use that information to our benefit.
Here are some strategies to help.
By Art Saffran
Most
anyone in today's workplace would wearily agree that they suffer
from information overload. Information keeps flowing in at a
furious pace from email, faxes, letters, in office phone calls,
cell phones and pagers, voice mail, meetings, interruptions,
magazines, brochures, newsletters, and more. In fact, some people
feel so overloaded that experts have identified a stress-induced
illness called Information Fatigue Syndrome.
More information comes your way daily than ever before, and
you have to find the relevant and often critical information
from this deluge. Tracking, filing, and finding information quickly
and easily is crucial in the legal field. Here are some strategies
to help you manage your information overload and turn information
from an enemy into an ally.
Time management
Determine what's important. Lawyers are busier than ever,
and their to-do lists grow longer with urgent, deadline-driven
tasks. But are these tasks your only important work? When the
task list is long, it often is easy to focus on projects that
are on a deadline and put off other equally important jobs. Creating
a firm marketing plan, working on a new staff recruiting strategy,
devising a technology plan, reviewing professional journals,
and completing other similar tasks may be critical to the success
of your law practice. Yet, they often are lost in the daily crush
of work.
List your important goals, then schedule time each week to
work on a few of them, tracking your progress. Spending some
time on these goals may free up time to take advantage of all
the information that comes your way.
Schedule time for projects. How often is your intention
to work on projects derailed by interruptions and unscheduled
events? Treat your work tasks as you would a client meeting.
Block time on your calendar, close the door, turn off the phone,
and focus on just the task at hand. As you reduce your to-do
list and regain control over your time, you may be more able
to deal with the uncontrollable events in your work life.
Schedule time to respond to email, faxes, and phone calls.
Email seems to demand your immediate attention because messages
come directly to your computer screen, bypassing all standard
office barriers. Whether the email comes from your staff, colleagues,
clients, or others, each message creates the expectation that
you will drop everything and respond immediately.
Treat your email time in the same way you might manage faxes,
phone calls, and letters. Plan daily times to respond to these
sources of information overload. Each morning, review your planned
tasks for the day. Then, listen to voice mail, and read your
letters, faxes, and email. Decide when you need to respond to
each communication and schedule time just for these tasks. Above
all, don't let each email, phone call, or fax throw you off your
planned day. This strategy will give you more time to respond
to the incoming messages that are true emergencies.
Email management
Control your email lists. Lawyers who use email lists
on the Internet may become inundated with messages. Subscribers
to email lists can communicate with all other same-list subscribers
by sending a single message to the list email address. Thousands
of people with similar interests can subscribe to a list. Lists
exist on thousands of topics and can be a source of valuable
information from substantive legal issues to personal hobbies.
Email lists also generate a high volume of incoming email
messages. Finding the important messages can be time consuming
and stressful. Subscribe to several email lists and you may never
see daylight.
Subscribe only to those email lists that offer high value
to your law practice and personal interests. Try a list for a
few days or weeks. If the volume of messages is too high or the
quality of discussion is not helpful or relevant, simply unsubscribe.
Subscribing and unsubscribing is as simple as sending an email
message to the list manager. When you are out of town for business
or vacation, consider unsubscribing from any busy email lists
or you may be faced with several hours of email reading when
you return.
Use the email list digest. Digests are a little-known
feature of all email lists. A digest will deliver a daily or
weekly compilation of all a list's messages in a single message.
Each email list may have a different method of subscribing to
the list digest; send a message to the list administrator to
find out how to subscribe or change to a digest version of the
list.
Use email folders. Your email program probably deposits
all your messages into one central in-box. Look at the options
of your email program and you may find it allows you to create
folders to organize your messages. Move your messages to the
proper folders, and it will be easier to find important email.
Use email rules. The "rules" feature of many
email programs can help you organize incoming messages automatically.
For example, you might create a rule that moves all mail from
an email list to a folder for that list. Once the rule is active,
all incoming messages from that list will be stored automatically
in the proper folder, making review and retrieval that much easier.
Learn to use your tools. Most lawyers do not know how
to use more than a few features of each technology tool at their
fingertips, from word processing and legal research databases
to Internet access. Effectively using the features available
in the software you use every day will help you efficiently manage
a high volume of information.
Buy books that explain the useful features of your computer
software. Look for computer classes in your community. For legal
research strategies, ask a law librarian for a lesson in electronic
legal research.
Paper management
Clear the clutter. Stacks of paper and other paraphernalia
on your desk make it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand.
These stacks distract you from your work and create stress that
interferes with clear thought.
Margaret Spencer, an expert in managing clutter, suggests trying the following
approach to clear your desk: 1) set aside
two to three uninterrupted hours for the task; 2) clear all the
knickknacks and office supplies from your desktop. Put personal
items on a shelf or credenza and the office supplies in your
desk drawers; 3) sort the magazines, newsletters, brochures,
and books on your desk. Create a "to read" shelf for
those materials you will read, toss those you know you won't
read; and 4) create project files - and use them. The first
three items are self-explanatory. But for anyone trying to burrow
out from under a severely paper-burdened desk, the following
explains how to begin.
Create project files. Write "Projects" on
a legal pad. Pick up one paper at a time from your desk and determine
what project it is for. List each project, assign each a number,
and include a short description of each project. Affix a Post-It®
brand note with the project number on it to each piece of paper.
Sort the paper by project number into piles on the floor. Repeat
this process with each piece of paper and file folder on your
desk until the top of your desk is clear. Finally, use your legal
pad list to create file folders for all the projects - the
project numbers and descriptions are the titles for your folder
labels. File all the folders numerically and use your legal pad
as an index for quickly locating all project-related files. Now
that your desk is clear, keep only your current work file on
it.
Use a personal scanner to reduce the amount of paper.
Much of the information you need to review, store, and retrieve
comes to you on paper in the form of articles, letters, newsletters,
and notes. Managing this paper and finding the information when
you need it can be daunting - a personal scanner can help.
Costing around $150, a personal scanner fits on the desk between
your keyboard and computer. To scan information you just insert
the paper and an electronic picture is created on your computer
screen. This picture can be labeled for easy future retrieval,
the text can be converted to a word processing file, and the
image can be sent over the phone lines as a fax. When converting
text to a word processing file, type in key words to make searching
easy. One of the most popular personal scanners is the PaperPort
from Visioneer (1-800-358-3298).
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Art Saffran is director of computer
services for the State Bar of Wisconsin. He can be reached by
e-mail or at 800-444-9404. |
Use a personal information manager. Personal information
manager (PIM) software lets you record, sort, and retrieve much
of the miscellaneous information that comes your way. Some PIMs
track notes, much like electronic Post-It notes. Others are more
full-featured, offering calendars, phone call tracking, and address
databases. A full-featured PIM, such as GoldMine from GoldMine
Software (1-800-654-3526), lets you keep track of all your
phone calls, miscellaneous information, and appointments. The
Microsoft Office suite contains a PIM called Outlook
included at no additional cost. Learning to use a PIM requires
time, but the reward in time and energy saved in finding critical
information can be enormous.
Create an intranet. An intranet is a Web site that
is internal to your office. An intranet gives your office the
same capabilities as a Web site on the Internet. Your intranet
might include links to client profiles, form and brief banks,
staff directories, personnel policy manuals, and links to Internet-based
legal research Web sites. Intranets require networked computers,
and getting one started may require some assistance. Once the
intranet is in place, everyone in the office will have fast access
to any information you choose to make available.
While these strategies might seem to create work for those
suffering from information overload, trying one or two strategies
just might be the first step in dealing with the growing challenge
of managing information.
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