Step 6 - Search your Soul
Evaluate the way you access information
I find that in order to get an accurate picture of my internet browsing takes about a week. Some of the things I don't do daily will most likely come about in a week. If they don't, they probably also do not affect my internet browsing enough to be significant.
So, if you have a pretty good memory, or have the appropriate settings for your browser history, you should try to identify which types of online tools you use the most and what you use the tool for:
- Research
- Current Events
- Entertainment
- Communication & Publishing
- Commerce
You probably already notice that many tools fall into more than one of these categories and you possibly use some tools for more than one purpose. However, the goal is simply to help you organize them so you can get a better idea of what exactly you do online. Though my complete list is much longer, here are my major internet tools:
- Research - Google search, Bing, Wikipedia, AllRecipes, Career Builder, Indeed, Google Maps
- Current Events - Seesmic, Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook, iGoogle, TweetMeme
- Entertainment - YouTube, MegaUpload, Torrentz, Yahoo! Sports, Pandora, Stitcher, Frostwire, Digg, Tumblr
- Communication & Publishing - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger, Gmail, Just Host, Google Docs
- Commerce - Craig's List, Amazon, Google Shopping, Buy.com
Also, don't forget to include other programs on your computer that connect to the internet in one way or another or services on your smart phone do the same. Possible examples include: Sidebar for Windows, BlackBerry Maps for BB Smartphones.
Once you have your services listed, identify the services that give you the largest volume of information and that you the most difficult time getting through all the information available. I listed mine in bold font above. If your tools are anything similar to mine, you might also notice that current events are the most difficult category of information to deal with. And this seems sensible, there is a LOT happening all at once and these services try to bring them all to you at once. A lot of people may also list their e-mail service, and I would have a few weeks ago. However, it seems that priority inbox has given me a great way to handle the information overload issue in my inbox.
What I hope you have gotten from this step is that you use the internet in a lot of very specific ways and that you don't use every tool for everything it can be used for. So, the way in which you experience the internet is quite literally unique and different from any other person. Now you may feel special that your internet browsing kharma is special and unique, but it does pose one daunting problem - there is no single, sufficient method to solve your information overload.
To decide which combination of methods is best for you, continue to the final step, Nirvana awaits!
Step 7 - Hit Refresh
Improve filters, consolidate sources, integrate access
So, now that you have an idea of what you do with the internet, you're now ready to take your browsing to the next level.
Before continuing, remember that as I mentioned earlier, everyone will have a different way in which they use each different tool so it is near impossible to come up with a catch-all recipe. However, I spent a lot of time evaluating the information consumption habits of many other people and I have been able to resolve the solution down to the simple recommendations:
- Improve your filters
- Consolidate your sources
- Integrate your access
Improve Filters
Depending on where you get your information, the filtering methods may be easy to control. For example, most e-mail services will allow you to moderate spam-blocking by black-listing or white-listing messages depending on the origin or content of the message. Others will further allow you to classify messages for labeling or distribution in your inbox beyond just spam blocking. Another example is in facebook where you can view the 'Top News' by default or switch to 'Most Recent' as an unfiltered alternative. On Twitter, you can set up lists of users feeds or save searches in order to aggregate the most-likely relevant information for you.
Finding out if the particular tool you're looking at has these features should not take very long. Setting them up and tuning them so that they get you exactly what you want, however, will take time and a lot of trial and error. A possible strategy for doing this may be:
- Using whichever method(s) available in your service, filter out nearly everything such that only the MOST relevant information to you at a particular point in time gets through
- Relax some of the restraints on the filters you set up to allow some more information through
- Add some new constraints as necessary when you see more junk start to slip through
- Iterate by relaxing and replacing to you reach a balance where NONE of the information you care about is being blocked and very little junk is coming through.
Consolidate Sources
This is another point where having a written list of your online services would be really helpful. On this list, you should already be able to identify some of the services that are similar just by thinking of them or looking at how they are categorized. Now you should make an important decision:
- Trim the fat, or
- Bring them together
You may not feel comfortable cutting off other services as they may have their peculiarities which you don't want to give up. In these cases, you will probably benefit from using a content aggregator that brings the information from various sites into one service. Examples include:
Sharp Reader - Desktop Client
Swift River - Dedicated and intelligent feed aggregator and filter client
You should also consider customizable home pages which are available from many sources online. These will greatly reduce the time it takes you to get to the information you want by placing the most recent updates right on your home page and let you decide how much or little you want. Examples:
Finally, note that some services will also allow you to couple not just the feeds but also your updates as well. An example of this is that Twitter will allow you to update your status through Facebook, and vise versa (although in a different way). So explore the services you do have and see what sort of APIs and connectivity that they offer. Third-party services that enable tethered publishing include:
Integrate Access
To maximize your overall experience, you should take these simple steps to integrate all these tools so that they flow well with your browser itself and your other points of access. You may have just completed the first of these as part of the last exercise:
- Customize your homepage
- Customize your favorites/bookmark bar
- Add extensions and toolbars
- Install desktop clients
- Update your smartphone apps and mobile browser bookmarks
The majority of these will not take more than just a few minutes if you spent the time evaluating your services and consolidating as much as possible. I would like to stress the importance of utilizing the appropriate toolbars and extensions at this point in time.
First, I would advice against using more than one toolbar. This will require greater resources from your computer which is generally undesirable. Also, and possibly more importantly, is that a toolbar may be used to store your bookmarks and your favorites so that you can access them from other computers. If you use more than one, you might accidentally store these favorites in a location that you might not have access to from another computer.
Second, don't get too crazy with extensions. Extensions and add-ons will allow your browser to do a lot of impressive, interesting and useful shenanigans, but be careful what you get. Some extensions may be malicious and crash your browser, or even mine your browser for information about you. Most sources for browser extensions feature reliable filtering and rating system which should help in identifying the unhealthy extensions. Also, having unnecessary extensions will undoubtedly require additional resources from your computer when you use its features. For this reason, you may want to limit the number of active extensions in your browser by deactivating or deleting those you do not need or want.
Finally, get on your smartphone and point your mobile browser to some of the sources that you use the most. You will find that a majority of these sites will feature either a mobile version of the site or a downloadable application dependent on your device. These will allow you to access the information you want on the go which will make you a very happy panda!
And there you have it, the secrets to unlocking Nirvana revealed to you, basically:
- Improve your computer and your browser
- Look at the services you use online
- Filter out the stuff you don't want and combine the stuff that you do
- Make it easy to get to your new refined pools of information
Welcome to Nirvana!
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