I guess having a clear goal in mind, and keeping it in mind, is one way of preventing information overload. Doing so can help you filter out distracting information.

For example, I'm currently writing something on 'communities', finally got around to @sndbox and through a bit of trail-tracing I've noted that you're earning more from your Dlive streaming of computer games than from your these philosophical 'thesis' posts, which is somewhat depressing, but 'cos it's not what I'm focusing on ATM, I just discarded it as something to come back to later!