Information Overload

You can take four steps to avoid information overload while making decisions. Let us discuss those needed steps.

You can take four steps to avoid information overload while making decisions. First, list the reasons that you're taking too long to make a particular decision. Second, write a sentence to contradict each reason. Third, set a deadline for making the decision. And fourth, budget time for each decision-making task within the deadline.

Consider a case where you have a decision to make but where you're overwhelmed by all the information you have on the issue. The first step is to list the reasons why you're taking too long to make this decision. Perhaps you're being a perfectionist about the decision. Or maybe you've become paralyzed by continually asking yourself "What if?" Alternatively, you may be avoiding some other task.

Having identified the reasons for taking too long to make a decision, the second step is to consider each reason and write a statement to contradict it. For some statements, this might be a matter of simply writing down its opposite. For example, if you said, "I'm going to make the wrong decision," you might replace it with "I'm not going to make the wrong decision."

Other times you may need to be more inventive. Perhaps you said "I'm just not prepared or qualified to make this decision." Instead say, "I've compiled sufficient information on the matter to make an informed and capable decision."

The purpose of this step is to recognize how your negative thoughts can be transformed into realistic statements. If you recognize that your thinking is keeping you from being decisive, you can take action to correct it.

For example, Yvette is starting a language training company. She's trying to determine what languages to offer, and in what format. In her ongoing research, however, she's found that what people want to study and why is more complicated than she expected. After more than a month of research, Yvette realizes she's become overwhelmed by information. To move forward, she lists her reasons for taking so long, and then contradicts them with written statements.

Select each of Yvette's steps to learn more about how to identify and replace reasons for taking too long with decisions.

List reasons for taking too long

Yvette spends a lot of time reading journals on the issue, consulting other schools, and speaking to friends and family. She even posts online surveys to ask students what and why they started studying. Currently, Yvette is surrounded by so much information that she's filled with more uncertainty than when she began.

She realizes that she thinks everything has to be perfect if her new business venture is to succeed. And while she wants to make the right decision about what to offer, she realizes that her anxiety about making the wrong decision is preventing her from making any decision. Yvette is afraid that by choosing one option she would be excluding a potentially lucrative option or segment of customers.

Contradict them

Yvette replaces the statement "Everything has to be perfect for my new business to succeed" with, "Everything doesn't have to be perfect for this to succeed." She also adds that "It's impossible for everything to be perfect, and business success depends on many other things."

More simply, Yvette replaces the statement "I'm going to make the wrong decision" with, "I'm not going to make the wrong decision." Finally, Yvette considers that she's afraid of losing some customer groups by making a choice. She contradicts this by telling herself that she won't be losing customers, but rather gaining ones by tailoring courses to their needs. What's more, she's only losing customers by failing to make this decision.

QUESTION

Lester is a research director for an electronics company. He's trying to decide whether his company should begin to invest more time in a burgeoning technology.

Which actions correspond to the first two steps of avoiding information overload while making decisions?

1. He realizes that what's holding him up is that he doesn't feel qualified to make this decision
2. He tells himself that he can make this decision because of his skills and experience
3. He identifies areas in which he needs to learn more so that he can become better able to make the decision
4. He tells his boss that he doesn't feel like he's the right person to be making this decision

The first step to avoiding information overload is identifying the reasons why you're taking so long to do it. In this case, Lester is worried about his ability to make the decision.

The second step for overcoming information overload is to contradict the reasons listed – in this case, that Lester is not qualified to make the decision.

Conducting more research isn't one of the steps to avoiding information overload.

The first two steps for overcoming information overload are to identify and then contradict reasons that are holding you back. When you try to back out of making the decision, you succumb to negative thinking rather than countering it.

I have been teaching and training agents, team leaders, supervisors, managers and admins of call centers and other businesses in BPO related fields. This series, comes as a result of that experience. I have more than 4,000 modules that I plan on sharing here. This is # 005-11

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