From my Google RSS “Trends” today:

From your 167 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 4,091 items, starred 164 items, shared 24 items, and emailed 1 items.

Ouch. That’s a lot of information. Some I probably just glanced at, some I probably retained, some I obviously thought was important, some I just had to share with friends and colleagues.

But a lot more than 4,091 items were available to me to read: by my estimate using the RSS data, I read approximately 50% of all posts I saw: about 8,200 individual things to read, each clamoring for my attention.

Can I (anybody) possibly pay attention to that much information? Is this beyond information overload? Multi-tasking is proven to be inefficient, and there is no question that most people cannot concentrate on this many things every day. Besides that, does simply being exposed to a lot of information change one’s ability to process information?

For the same amount of information consumed, is it more productive to 1) see a lot and ignore a lot compared to 2) see a little and ignore a little?

My goals:

• Use information mavens (1)
• “If the news is important it will find me”
• Consume less, create more

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(1) I believe in the idea, but do not practice what I preach. Instead, maybe I am an information maven myself?