Skip to main content

Information Overload

massive swirl of books and notebooks in a vortex shape

A number of years ago, I took a time management course from Dave Crenshaw on LinkedIn Learning. He mentioned that one of the real impediments to getting things done is that we simply have too many gathering points. Being bombarded with email inboxes, voicemail, messaging applications, and more is overwhelming and doesn't allow us to process the information we have captured. David Allen also mentions this in Getting Things Done as corralling your "stuff." If you're looking for a good breakdown of this point, Thanh Pham at Asian Efficiency summarizes how this looks in life.

In relating this concept to books, I have been thinking about all the online accounts I have and how best to manage them. For instance, my oldest library inventory lives on LibraryThing where in a few years, I'll get a twenty-year badge (yikes!). This is my most comprehensive list in that it tracks every single book I own, along with all of my book ratings and reviews. It's also my favourite book-related site as their built-in scanner on the app is incredibly helpful for when I get book hauls on vacations!

Despite it being incredibly versatile as a site, I don't use LibraryThing to track what books I've read. Instead, I keep a notebook where I can record the books I've completed in order to know how many I read in a year in the easiest manner possible—no ratings, no comments, just the title and author. In the last couples of years, I've adopted Notion as a way to track what books to get so that I have a handy place to store information on upcoming releases and their current prices.

Because I've had LibraryThing for so long, I didn't bother with a Goodreads account until now. While I appreciate that it's community-oriented with a lot more reviews, it would essentially be another database to fill out. I may reconsider this decision as this is where most of the Bookstagram community seems to live, but I also have a hard time browsing Christian titles on there, especially when I access lists and they seem quite short 🤷

As I share more reviews on here, the thought has also crossed my mind on whether I should add them to other accounts. For LibraryThing ARCs, I will definitely do that, but since I review a lot of books that I don't own, I can see that muddying up my current inventory. Though I might be over-analyzing these logistical details, I share these thoughts because I want to centralize where all of my information comes from (my inputs) and where it lives (my outputs) in an effort to keep things simple. I imagine that applying this concept to life will help as well. (Can you tell I do a lot of this type of thinking in my work life?)

With books, I can see how there's a plethora of ways to celebrate them with the risk of going down many rabbit holes. I think that to keep things sustainable for now, I will likely limit my entries and ramblings to LibraryThing (my technical outlet), this blog (my functional outlet), and Instagram (my relational outlet). I hope it's a worthwhile journey 😄

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christian as a Genre

I've always found it interesting that Christianity as its own genre can be used across music, film, books, and virtually most forms of artistic or creative expression. While most secular items tend to be labelled by their style, works produced by Christians tend to get labelled by the faith of the one producing it. I remember seeing an article years ago about how the Grammys  put Christian artists under the genre of Gospel and Contemporary Christian who would then be further separated out by their musical style, such as Gospel, Bluegrass, Rock, Pop, Country, etc. I can't recall the specifics of the article, but I believe that the author of the article thought it was both a little unfair that artists would be lumped together in a giant pool despite varying styles or backgrounds, and that it was also a label that didn't really tell audiences what they would be getting, other than Christian content. I wish I could remember a bit more, but as I read it in passing, the only thou...
2 comments
Read more

Review: Doting on His Best Friend - Christmas at Redemption Ridge #11

It's been lovely to pick up some more Christmas titles as the weather changes! Doting on His Best Friend by Liwen Y. Ho has been fun to read as I can picture myself being by a fireplace with hot chocolate and playing board games with my best friend, my husband. What a great start to the season! I am grateful to the author for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own. Book Synopsis Can two best friends overcome their age gap and the past to become something more? Phoebe Cordle moved to Redemption Ridge after experiencing loss and was grateful to find a ranching town where she could start her own equine therapy practice. She also found a confidante in a handsome and generous man nine years her junior who's captured the attention of all the single ladies in their community—including her own. However, after zero signs of interest on Milo’s part for the past six years, she’s given up hope and decides to help him find love instead. Milo Gibson wa...
3 comments
Read more

Review: The Darkness Deepens - The Day Draws Near #2

If you've read  The End Begins , the first book in the  The Day Draws Near series (previously The Seven Trilogy) by Sara Davison, The Darkness Deepens takes you further as this sequel further delves into Jesse and Meryn's story. I wouldn't say that this book is a standalone book as it builds upon the previous one, but I would say that reading the first book will certainly whet your appetite for this one as you find out what's next. I am grateful to the publisher,  Mountain Brook Ink , for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own. Book Synopsis Their secrets protect them... but secrets are hard to keep. No one in the army can find out that Captain Jesse Christensen has become a believer. He and bookstore owner Meryn O'Reilly are forced to meet in secret, facing imprisonment-or worse-if they are found together. As their relationship deepens, so does Lieutenant Gallagher's hatred for the Christians in their city, putting all be...
2 comments
Read more