Managing information overload in grad school
One of the things we are all hit with when we start (and throughout) grad school is the constant onslaught of information. You get tons of emails daily. There’s so much literature to read to catch up to your field, and you never totally catch up because there’s more and more and more literature published every day. You have classes and TAing and probably grading. You are looking for a lab you want to work in for the next several years. It’s overwhelming. You will be overwhelmed. It’s ok. We all figure out how to handle this information overload over time. The goal of this post is to give you an overview on some techniques/ideas I use to help you on your way to finding the best methods of organization for you. I hope this post serves as a resource for you. This is not the only way to do it and I’ve linked to additional resources throughout the post if you want to learn more. In this post, I’ll cover: Why I spent the time focusing on this so late in my graduate career The Eisenhower Matrix for setting priorities The PARA method for organizing information based on how it fits into your life The “Getting Things Done” (GTD) method for triaging the onslaught of information The tools I use (and some I’ve tried) Throughout the post, I’ll sprinkle in examples of tools and how I use these methods in my career/life. All tools mentioned (and additional ones I’ve tried/use) can be found at the end of the post.