Much of the stress you feel today can be traced to monolithic purveyors of news and information. The U.S. government, believe it or not, is the world's largest publisher and the combined total of information and stuff impacting your life that it spews out on a daily basis is beyond comprehension. Concurrently, the news media, ever-bent on seeking the latest gore to explore, then piously deplore, convolute society on a daily basis, offering unbalanced coverage of the absurd, the titillating, and the sensational. If only these two institutions were the only over-information culprits. Unfortunately, society is beset with purveyors of news and information.

The Great Age of Information Hasn't Arrived

Chances are that you are besieged by all kinds of information competing for your time and attention. Is this merely a lucky guess?

Given the way society is progressing, everyone who holds a position of responsibility is besieged by too much competing for their time and attention.

What is the origin of this information buildup? Was it predictable? Can you look to the past to see the reasons why there's so much information today? It turns out that you can. There have been three great ages of humankind, with a fourth about to emerge:

1. The first was the age of hunting and gathering, wherein people principally lived by hunting animals and collecting berries. Your ancestors, in particular, did a pretty good job at this.

2. The age of agriculture followed, when people learned that they didn't have to be nomads, wandering around to find their next meal. Instead, they could cultivate the soil, predict when crops would grow, and forecast what their yield would be. This was a great leap forward for humankind in some respects; it allowed for an understanding of how to work with nature and the seasons. It also prompted people to have unprecedented numbers of children--many died at birth, and all who survived were needed to work the fields and soon as they could.

3. The next great age was that of industry, in which all manner of capital were put together so that consumers, as a class, would be served by producers. This prompted producers to learn countless ways to turn out products through mass production capabilities. Improved printing and publishing processes were among the key developments of this age.

The next age that will emerge--but is not here in full swing --is the information age. Do you believe that we're in the information age already? In the information age, information will serve you, and you will not be abused by an excess of information. The present, pre-information age era in which you now reside is an era of over-information, an idea to which you can readily relate.

Flip the Switch, Man

In the industrial age when people need to achieve something rather ordinary, did they have to go through a series of motions, read manuals, or become experts at the task? Not at all. Consider turning on the lights in your room. You flip a switch, or clap your hands or make some other sound--such technology has been available for at least a decade. It isn't necessary to know a single thing about lighting for you to light a room. Lighting is a product of the industrial age, and lights serve you--to get them on, you only flip a switch.

To start your car, you need only turn the key. To take care of other tasks, you push a button, flip a switch, or turn a dial. These are industrial age processes working at their best, so that you don't have to become an electrical engineer or physicist to function effectively. In fact, you could say that industrial age processes serve you almost invisibly

An Over-Abundance

Consider what it takes to function effectively in the age of industry, and apply it to information. To get the information you need, what do you need to do? You need to go on-line, open a manual, make several calls, consult an expert, buy the latest issue of something, or undertake even more onerous steps. Unfortunately, right now--particularly in the workplace--you undertake a series of activities to get the precise information you need.

Often, your problem is not a lack of information on a topic. Frequently, the problem you face is an abundance of information, or too much information of a general nature. The age of information is coming wherein you'll instantaneously receive answers to your questions. Before the great age is fully in swing, you'll be besieged by more information than all previous generations combined.

I received a flyer in the mail about a new Barnes & Nobles superstore opening up in a shopping center near me. As I read the brochure carefully, I was astounded. For example, the store was to feature more than 150,000 titles, stock more than 2,500 different domestic and international newspapers, periodicals, and magazines, and have the capability to order an additional 200,000 book titles from national distributors.

The children's section would include 15,000 titles; the music section, 25,000 CDs and cassettes; and other parts of the store, equally astounding numbers. And, this was simply an outlet for producers and publishers who probably generate ten times those numbers of products.

Publish and Perish

Beyond all reasonable doubt, I knew the amount and nature of information our society was generating had gotten to beyond absurdity when I was flipping through the MIT Press publications catalog. There it was: a book on manhole covers. The description said that manhole covers "catalogs an often ignored yet singular form of urban industrial art in its place in American culture."

A reviewer of this book said that the book, "Occupies a rather indeterminate genre category: part history of material culture, part exercise in obsessive photographic cataloging of related objects, part Crypto-Pop artists book. There's a crisp and even elegant matter-of-factness to their writing and their pictures, a spare functionalist precision." This book consumed 272 pages, including 229 illustrations, and sold for $39.95.

Price-Stern-Sloan, a trade book publisher from Los Angeles, recently published a book with the ominous title, "I Purr, Therefore I Am: Never Before Collected Observations on All Things Cat." Yes, I know there are cat fanciers out there, and for me to tread upon sacred catnip ground is risky, but I shall persevere.

With books on manhole covers and a legion of books on cats, is it any wonder that at least 3,000 books are published every week in the U.S. alone, and at least 2,000 books a day worldwide? The real question is, how many of them needed to be published in the first place?

When you understand the true nature and volume of information confronting you, you can more easily understand how important it is to become more selective than you've ever been.

Jeff helps organizations and individuals manage the relentless enslaught of information overload. www.BreathingSpace.com discusses Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars including "Managing Information and Communication Overload" and "Prospering in a World of Rapid Change." Jeff is Executive Director of the Breathing Space(r) Institute; a popular speaker; and the author of numerous books, including:

* The 60 Second Organizer (Adams Media)
* Breathing Space (MasterMedia)
* The Joy of Simple Living (Rodale)
* Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time (Alpha/Penguin)

To book Jeff for your next meeting call him directly at 800-735-1994.