You’re in an airport. You’re trying to find your airline’s bag drop. Speakers are blaring. Your phone just buzzed. You squint for your flight number among dozens on the board. Your child inexplicably let go of their trolley 20m back. You forget which pocket or bag the passports are in. It’s all getting a bit much!
Work can sometimes feel like that. In our increasingly – in many cases totally – digitalised workplaces, the way we receive information has changed. Information now reaches you at the convenience of the sender. Emails, IMs, WhatsApps, phone and video calls – all and any can arrive at any time. Added to that, new systems and tools disrupt settled workflows. Maybe your company shifted from G-Suite to Office 365, Slack to Teams, enforced new login/access rules, or implemented new filing architecture to learn.
Often these decisions are taken with no thought for their combined effect, which is to overwhelm, paralyse and inhibit. Added to that, we often don’t help ourselves in our digital habits. We let social media and its endless, unconnected content, disrupt our concentration further.
Altogether, the effect produced is called information overload.
Information overload is when we exceed our ability to process information. We lose the ability to take in new information. Information overload comes from both the quantity of information coming in and the burden of said information. HBR defines burdensome information as being duplicative, irrelevant, effort-intensive and inconsistent. We read but we don’t process, making us feel forgetful.
The consequences for the individual and the organisation they work for are negative and include:
Cognitive decline: Difficulty concentrating, remembering, decision paralysis and making sound decisions
Stress and anxiety: Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information to process
Reduced productivity: more time spent filtering information and less time on core tasks
Thankfully, information overload can be prevented and remedied. Programmes that implement effective data management tools and strategies reduce information overload. By introducing healthy data practices and data-handling skills, stress and anxiety will decline and productivity will rise.
But as with many ailments, the signs of information overload might not be clear. Let’s look at what the symptoms of information overload are.
Signs of Information Overload
There are three main signs of information overload.
1. Difficulty focusing and decision-making
Information overload can cause feelings of being swamped. A well-ordered day can fall into disarray with a few unexpected requests from management, haphazard filing systems and random meetings. A feeling of generalised urgency can set in, disrupting you from settling into a productive flow state.
In reality, the actual workload might be manageable. But each new task and decision to make makes it hard to evaluate the difficulty of each task.
The accumulation of decisions to make during a day causes what’s known as decision fatigue. It becomes harder to make sound decisions and induces an aversion to making decisions at all.
Decision fatigue can have material consequences for companies. One study sought to understand the impact of decision fatigue in the finance sector. The study found that credit loan officers approved fewer loans as the day progressed. They defaulted to the “reject” option due to decision fatigue build-up, costing the bank a staggering half a million dollars per month.
2. Reduced productivity and employee satisfaction
Information overload causes decreased productivity – fact. Information management company OpenText found that 35% of US workers say overload has a detrimental effect on their work performance. Some 30% attributed a decline in overall job satisfaction to information overload as well.
One cause of decreased productivity is an overabundance of tools and systems. OpenText found more than a quarter of those surveyed needed to access 11 or more accounts, resources, tools and apps each day to access the information they need. This also represented a sharp uptick from the pre-pandemic years.
Added to that, more than 40% report difficulty finding the information they need. A poorly managed infrastructure transition can scatter information across sites, folders and apps. This pushes the stress employees face in a distributed work environment even higher. Because information overload causes difficulty focusing, employees find it harder to get through their workload.
3. Increased stress and burnout
While burnout and information overload are separate, information overload can contribute to burnout. OpenText found that information overload contributes to daily stress in three-quarters of people.
Constant digital connectivity and an “always-on” expectation prevent employees from disconnecting. The effect is to blur work-personal boundaries, leading to burnout and listlessness over time.
Burnout and information overload can trigger feelings of helplessness, procrastination/executive dysfunction, headaches and feeling tired all the time despite satisfactory sleeping hours on paper.
Now, let’s get into the details about what causes information overload and how we can prevent it.
Causes of Information Overload in the Workplace
The three primary causes of information overload at work are poor communication practices, lack of data literacy and ineffective information management systems.
Poor communication practices
Poor communication can appear in many forms.
A Gartner survey of 1,000 employees and managers found that 38% of employees report an “excessive” volume of communications at their organisation. This might seem like a volume issue at first glance – but it isn’t. Rather, an excess of communication likely points to duplicative, pointless or conflicting communication. Messy internal communication requires extra sifting and can blot out useful information. We’ve all missed key emails due to a bunch of threaded emails growing like weeds in our inboxes. HBR estimates that employees spend 3.5 hours per week dealing with excess communications.
There’s also the matter of dispersed data. In the US, around 40% of employees spend around one or more hours per day navigating siloed information repositories. Haphazard storage and poor filing hygiene are common problems. People may also struggle to understand the purposes of similar tools, such as Sharepoint and DropBox.
Person-to-person, effective communication can solve poor communication practices in meetings and calls. Ensure at the end of every call that action points are summarised, given a deadline and allocated to an individual. Eliminate any doubt about what needs to be done and by whom. This saves a lot of wasted communication down the line. Learning to communicate concisely and effectively in emails, and being conscious of when to use reply all, has a similar effect. Five minutes of clarity is worth hours of ineffective effort.
Lack of data literacy
Data literacy is the ability to read, understand and communicate through data. In terms of information overload, a lack of data literacy stops us from evaluating and using information effectively. Meanwhile, a data-literate individual can use data to communicate more effectively with a more diverse range of people. Data literacy also improves prioritisation skills, so someone can use their time better.
Unfortunately, levels of data literacy are low across the board. One study found that only a fifth of workers consider themselves confident in using and expressing their data skills. That conflicts with an expectation among 80% of decision-makers that every department should have basic data literacy skills.
This is a problem because low data literacy impacts an organisation’s ability to function. It can cause inaccurate decision-making, a lack of trust and credibility, missed opportunities and ineffective communication and collaboration.
Ineffective information management systems
Poorly implemented information management systems are another cause of information overload. Fragmented data storage makes it hard to access information. The frustrations of trying to maintain a clear picture of the storage structure cause information overload, too.
There is a ton to keep track of. There is a sea of documents, records, web content, communications, digital assets, resources, collaborative work and more to grapple with. These all rely on effective information management to access.
Now, let’s touch on how we can reduce information overload.
Strategies for Reducing Information Overload
Prioritise Information
Prioritise information and tasks effectively. This empowers you to focus on what matters. But doing this well is easier said than done. How do you balance something less important but urgent with a critical task with longer timelines?
For leaders especially, it’s good practice to develop a set of rules that keep you from getting bogged down in details. For example, McKinsey found that some leaders explicitly refuse to respond to any email on which they are only cc’d. This filters out issues that others think require no action from them. They also found that data literacy and educating staff on what deserves to be brought to a leader’s attention reduces the information burden.
But staff without the privilege of ignoring emails need other prioritisation techniques. The good news is that information prioritisation is a very old problem and many brilliant minds have contributed to solving it. Let’s look at a few popular methods.
The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple tool to help prioritise tasks based on their urgency and importance. Tasks are categorised into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. Categorise tasks into the quadrants to help focus effort on activities that yield the greatest value.
Alternatives include Action Priority Matrix and Covey Matrix, which replace urgency with effort and time, respectively.
Alongside prioritisation techniques, we can hit optimal productivity by incorporating time management techniques.
Effective time management helps you focus and combats information overload. The eternally popular Pomodoro technique (which was used to write this blog!) divides half an hour into 25 minutes of focus time and 5 minutes of break. The promise of a break keeps the mind on track and the break provides a short respite from intense concentration. After a few rounds, a longer break is encouraged. Bookmark www.pomofocus.io now!
Time blocking is also popular. Schedule your day into slots for each task you need to work on. It takes some practice to estimate the time for each task and can be done in conjunction with Pomodoro.
Effective Data Management Tools
Data management platforms exist to efficiently organise, filter, and manage data. Core features include task tracking, collaboration functionalities and customisable workflows. These help teams streamline their data management processes and enhance productivity. Examples are numerous and diverse but include Airtable, MS Access, mySQL and Salesforce.
Data visualisation software converts raw data into graphics such as charts, graphs and maps. Data visualisation tools enhance information comprehension by making patterns, relationships and outliers more apparent than in their raw data form. Overall, data viz tools enhance decision-making, drive innovation, and provide a competitive edge.
Popular data visualisation tools include Tableau, Microsoft Power BI and Google Data Studio.
Implementing a Data Management Strategy
Procuring the right data management tools facilitates information organisation.
Here’s a suggested framework to go about that:
Define business goals: Identify key objectives and priorities. Understanding the strategic direction helps to align data management efforts with business objectives.
Assess current state: Evaluate existing data management practices, infrastructure and tech. Ask your staff about how they access information and what they struggle with.
Establish data governance: Write policies, procedures and guidelines for managing and protecting data assets. Define roles and responsibilities, establish data quality standards and ensure compliance with regulations.
Evaluate vendor solutions: Decide what tools and tech you need and find a vendor that matches what you need. Consider factors such as scalability, compatibility, ease of use and cost-effectiveness.
Upskill in data literacy: Staff need to be data literate to use the new infrastructure to its fullest extent.
Features to look out for include email filters, dashboards and automated reporting systems.
Now let’s get into the final section, where we look at the upsides of reducing information overload.
Benefits of Addressing Information Overload
Improved decision-making and problem-solving
By improving information processing and gathering, organisations reach a more structured decision-making process. A division of oilfield services giant Halliburton was generating too much data such that the company couldn’t make sense of it. It brought in virtual workspace technology that allowed Halliburton’s experts to collaborate on their painstaking geological detective work, enabling improved decision-making and job performance.
Increased productivity and efficiency
By processing and managing information effectively, staff can work more productively. In the retail sector, software can streamline product information processes. Centralising product information reduces the time and resources required to manage product information. Staff are then free to focus on higher-value tasks.
In the data-intensive insurance sector, policyholders tend to choose insurers with strong data compliance and security. Customer service is also a major point of differentiation. Underwriters that have unified customer information dashboards can deliver superior customer experience. All told, sound security and data management is a revenue driver.
Enhanced employee well-being and morale
Strategies that lessen information overload make employees feel more supported and empowered. Employees who feel supported and valued are more likely to be productive, innovative and loyal to their organisations. Engaged employees are at almost no risk of suffering from burnout.
Stronger data-driven culture
Effective information management positions a company to make data-driven decisions. When data is readily accessible, reliable and actionable – but not torrential, unpredictable and overwhelming – data culture can develop. And the numbers heavily support the case for data culture. Earnings and revenue growth superior in data culture companies to those with weak data practices.
Understanding Data Literacy
Data literacy is the ability to communicate through data. It reverses the friction that employers find when trying to adopt data culture.
Data literacy helps employees better understand data. It encourages them to interpret data, identify patterns, and draw meaningful conclusions from it. Amongst teams, data literacy allows individuals to communicate data insights effectively to colleagues from different backgrounds, creating a shared understanding. Data-driven culture benefits from data literacy
Data Literacy Academy’s programmes exist to help companies develop data literacy skills in their workforce. Data literacy improves decision-making in a data-rich environment. Data Literacy Academy provides live and online courses on data literacy. The courses offered are designed to target various proficiency levels.
Data literacy is built on three pillars of Foundations of Data, Taking Action with Data and Working with Data.
Conclusion
Information overload can have material consequences for any business, with data-intensive sectors at particularly high risk. Fortunately, overload can be mitigated by instilling strong data skills throughout an organisation. Soft skills and technical decisions combine to usher in data culture.
We recommend educating team members and leaders on communication and prioritisation best practices. Making careful tech decisions can facilitate communication and unleash the power of data.
Do that, and you will see productivity rise, decision-making improve and ROI grow, positioning your company for long-term growth.
FAQ
Is information overload negatively impacting my business?
To work that out, you can ask your employees about how they feel at work and if they have difficulty focusing and making decisions. You can also look at whether the common causes of information overload – poor communication practices, low data literacy and ineffective information management – exist at your company.
Can data literacy reduce the stress associated with information overload?
Absolutely! Data Literacy improves decision-making and equips employees with skills to handle large information loads. It also encourages staff to act consciously to reduce information burden on others.
What are the first steps towards becoming data literate?
The first step to becoming data literate is finding out what training options are out there. You can book a consultation with us to get started today.
How long does it take to see the benefits of data literacy training?
The effects will be felt by staff fairly quickly as they try out their new data and communication skills. The impact of data-driven decision-making on ROI normally takes a little longer to be felt on the bottom line.
Is information overload a real problem in the workplace?
Yes, it is a long-standing problem that has been verified by numerous studies and surveys. It can reliably be mitigated by following the practices described in this article.
