How to feel like you have time to read everything

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The cocktail party conversations I have about what I do for a living reveal so much about the world. For example, if I say I have an Internet startup, people generally think: She's unemployed. If I say I write a syndicated newspaper column that runs in 200 papers, people are impressed. If I tell people I'm a blogger, they say, “I don't have time to read blogs.”

Here's what I am going to start saying to those people: Only losers say they don't have time to read blogs. Because everyone has the same 24 hours in the day. So it's not that you somehow are more busy than everyone else — no one is actually too busy for anything — the issue is that reading blogs is not high enough on your priority list to read them.

So the real response, when I say, “I'm a blogger,” should be “I stay away from blogs so I can shield myself from alternative opinions to mainstream media.” And you wouldn't want to be that person, right? In fact, you're probably not that person, because look, you're reading this blog.

But the problem of saying “I don't have time to read that” applies to anything — it could be blogs but it could be those really long articles in the Atlantic that scream: “I know no one is reading this article! I only wrote it to get a book deal!”The reality is that you have time to read everything.

Here’s what to do if you feel like you can’t get a grip on your reading pile:

Stop talking about information overload. That term is for weaklings. Guess what? Generation Y never talks about information overload. That's because they know how to process information better than anyone else. That's actually what they were doing when their parents told them to turn off the TV and the music and log off of IM and do their homework.

Information overload is actually the feeling that you cannot sort through the resources in the world in order to figure out what's important. If you feel like you are overwhelmed it means that your career is at risk, because the best employees in today's workplace are information synthesizers. And information synthesizers don't feel overwhelmed by information — they either use it or they don't, but they don't whine that there's too much.

(Here's a way to test yourself for how fast you can process information online. Look at these two blogs for three seconds each: On Simplicity and Marginal Revolution. Can you tell which is the bigger? If you can't figure it out that quickly, you won't be able to sort information quickly. Solve the problem by practicing: You don't need to read more stuff to decrease your sense of information overload. You need to read a wider range of sources.)

Stop talking about good and bad media. Just because you don't read it doesn't make it bad. There is not any type of media that is so stupid that you can categorically dismiss it. I have found that I learned things from romance novels, People magazine, and even books that, in hindsight, were time wasters. So instead of saying, “I don't have time for xx,” talk about time like you have a grip on it. Say, “I don't have that type of media at the top of my list because of xx.” It's a great exercise to make yourself talk this way, because good time management is actually about understanding your priorities, and you cannot explain your reading choices without also explaining your priorities.

Stop talking about time like you need to save it. You just need to use it better. Look, if you wanted save all your time, and sit around and do nothing all day, then you would be gunning for a 4-hour work week. But most people actually enjoy being busily engaged in interesting things (which is why I think Tim Ferriss is a scam) so we are not so much saving time as figuring out the best use of our time.

So focus on meeting your goals rather than saving time. Information is not something you have time for or don't have time for. Information is either helping you meet your goals or not.

And anyway, maybe your real time management problem is that you are a perfectionist, you spend too much time doing research, or you work too hard on Mondays (yep, that's right, you should plan to do the most on Wednesday and Thursday).

125 replies
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  1. C.C. Chapman
    C.C. Chapman says:

    Easily the most true post I’ve read from anyone in a long time. THANK YOU for writing it!!!!

    I’ve had this argument with people all the time about “finding time for all this” and I tell them that you make the choices with how you spend your time. I don’t watch a lot of television, it is a choice.

    We all have choices to make. You’ll make time for the things that are truly important to you.

  2. Kamal S.
    Kamal S. says:

    “I don’t get why you lionise Generation Y all the time though. I don’t really think they are genuinely more talented and wonderful than the rest of us. They’re just people, for better or worse.”

    Perhaps it is because, just like us Gen X types (or the butt end of us, I guess, those born between 1974 and 1979) and the Baby Boomers before us, they are convinced that they are the cat’s meow and precious special snowflakes.

    A generation’s virtues are often the inverses of their faults. Frankly I see little difference in attitudes and dispositions between the segment of Gen Y of age now, and those of us from the butt end of Gen X. I more or less lump in together everyone whose roughly 27 – 34.

    Mostly the same music, the same work attitudes, the same dissipative and time wasting pursuits, the same work habits (for better, as well as worse), overlapping social circles (e.g. the “how many of my little brother’s friends have I dated or hang out with my friends” effect) mostly the same virtues (like the ability to rapidly access and navigate the seas of new media) and the same faults (myopic self-importance and the inability to see our faults for what they really are).

    It is Gen Y’s time in the sun because they are arriving at the age in which they can prove themselves at work, but really I just chalk it up to being little more than the Special Snowflake syndrome that every Generation goes through in their 20’s..

  3. Kamal S.
    Kamal S. says:

    I do find that people who backhandedly dismiss blogs are pretty much pointless to deal with. The same with those who dismiss Twitter without ever having even seen it, assuming it’s only people “talking about what they ate for lunch.(I was shocked in a meeting recently to listen to a group of my coworkers, nearly all younger than me (I am 36,) talking about Twitter like this

    I find them just as pointless to deal with as people who backhandedly dismiss reading magazines and print newspapers.

    All of which shows the facile inanity of making generalizations about an entire generation. I’m 34 and use social media more extensively than most 24 year olds in my social circle. Of course I had an email account in the 9th grade, when the Internet was still sometimes called Darpanet.. so I’ve had almost 20 years to practice and grow up with this stuff.

    But the point still stands, while much of Gen Y finds new media to be second nature, many don’t even have a facebook profile, and those who do tend to use social media to it’s fuller potential are often older. In my informal observations the age set that seems most conversant with social media technology are between 28 and 36, give or take. Which makes sense, growing up with technology isn’t as much the point as the maturity, intellect, and experience needed to twist technology into your service..

    To understand and manipulate it’s nuances. For example, a friend of mine who just turned 40 schooled me the other day in marketing techniques using twitter that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

    Ageism is stupid and prevents one from learning things of value from one’s peers of a different age set, because one’s blinders preventing the recognition that they actually, well, have anything of value to say.

    That said, I find that GenY is over generalized as so productive and good at multitasking. If anything, I find many of them particularly difficult to get anything of substance out of, probably because, being so multitask-oriented, they don’t really know how to do one thing really, really well, but do many things with passing abilities.

    Oddly enough people were saying the same thing about Gen X a few years ago. There is a self imposed blindness young adults often have at first. I often enjoy giving Gen Y interns certain types of repetitive drudgework and research requiring a good deal of multi-tasking to get through.They were really great for that in spite of a tendency to avoid valuable print sources. They run like Hamsters, cough up reports chock full of information as well as massive typos. I put 30 min into cleaning them up, add and correlate in my own research, mostly gained from print sources, thank them for their valuable rough intelligence and info. They buzz like hamsters in wheels whilst I drink my coffee. They cough up tons of formatted information that I clean up and use for my own purposes.
    Win/win it facilitates my more selective multitasking between things of more importance..

    That said, and this is a generalization, my experiences with them in the workplace has often been a real lack of depth and substance, but impressive breadth. This is a generalization, many do not fit it. In all things it is good to see nuances and exceptions to general rules.

    Not to mention that I think this is a generation that is going to find itself crashing, hard, in a few years time, when they burn out from overextending themselves. Maybe us “older” people are slower and less able to multitask, but we know our limits much better. I know how to rest. You know why I want to “save time”?

    With all respect to the blog’s owner (I’ve really enjoyed reading it in the 12 months or so I’ve discovered it) many posts are indicative of such a crash looming ahead. I had that crash myself at 32, lost a business, my fiance, many people close to me, in a meltdown… it ugly but I found a good deal of perspective and peace, and a certain zen like tranquility and realization of the merely relative importance of certain things, like say, careers.
    One thing that I did learn was to stop sacrificing depth for breadth. Most adults learn this once they reach a certain stage of maturity, ideally without catastrophic crashes.

    Anyway, “older” people often aren’t that much slower to begin with. Those who seem most savvy with new media technologies, actually understanding them and able to use them PRODUCTIVELY are generally between about 25 and 35 or 36. With significant exceptions to the rule either way.

  4. Brad Balfour
    Brad Balfour says:

    Penelope: I’m finding that I both agree and disagree with you on this.

    On the idea that “I don’t have time” is an excuse. I agree. It’s a great excuse, however. I use it all the time. But it really is the same as “I’m not making that my priority”.

    But I completely disagree with you on the idea of information overload. Sure some people just whine and complain. And sure, some people are just not good at processing lots of information. (And I don’t agree that Gen Y is somehow better at it either. I’ll stack myself up against most Gen Y folks any day of the week).

    However, there are plenty of power bloggers who consume a ton of information all the time. And yet, they still can’t consume all the information they “need” or “want” to consume. In many ways it’s a production problem more than a consumption problem. And it’s worse when the supply is a supply of good, useful stuff. If you don’t believe me that it’s more than just whining, check out my some recent blog post on this topic at blog.bscopes.com.

    That’s what driven me to create Bscopes.com. I needed a different, graphical, approach to finding and consuming the blog content. Something that deals with “information overload” by letting me consume more information. And find the needles of information that I want in the haystack of all the blogs out there I know about.

    I’d love some feedback from you and the Brazen Careerist blog readers as to how well Bscopes graphical approach to cutting through the clutter works. I think that a different technology can help those folks who already know what their priorities are but are still trying to drink from the firehose.

  5. darlene
    darlene says:

    Penelope, STOP taking stuff so personally. Breathe. So people say they don’t have time to read blogs – really – you have to counter an attack? And aren’t they, too, entitled to their opinions? Sometimes it is okay to let stuff slide.

  6. Scott Woodard
    Scott Woodard says:

    Great post. “…we are not so much saving time as figuring out the best use of our time.” I love that quote, hits the nail smack on the head; which is why I disagree with Fifi who commented that time management allows us to have and do it all. We do what we can, when we can, and that’s enough.

    ~ Scott

  7. mhm1339
    mhm1339 says:

    love this post for so many reasons. My favorite bit of advice: “So focus on meeting your goals rather than saving time. Information is not something you have time for or don't have time for. Information is either helping you meet your goals or not.”

  8. Albion Pacific
    Albion Pacific says:

    I was a bookseller for 20+ years until the world moved on from that sort of information format. One thing I discovered was that the best booksellers were instinctively brilliant information synthesizers. They knew how good a book was just by test driving it (it’s what most people do nowadays w/ RSS and blog reading — speed + smarts), they knew where to get information (resource knowhow), and when it came to sales, they knew when to shut up (a skill rarely practiced by any blogger).

    Now information synthesizers are everywhere. Not everyone can do it, but some can do it brilliantly — and they don’t even have to be booksellers.

    I think this is progress.

  9. avant garde designer
    avant garde designer says:

    In the last 48 hours two events occurred that confirms my suspicion that I haven’t been fully absorbing what I read.

    Yesterday, at a job interview testing, I failed to fully read and follow the directions. This morning, I realized I read a date incorrectly, therefore an appointment I thought was today is not until next month (thankfully it wasn’t the other way around).

    Yes, skimming and reading things wrong can happen to anyone, anytime. But I just can’t help feeling I’m trying to read too much and not giving things enough attention.

    I think we can be too busy to read blogs. Penelope, you shouldn’t take it personally if someone has set their priorities and your blog, or any other, isn’t one of them. We’re all trying to do too much. If someone chooses to limit themselves by not reading blogs, well, good for them (I made a conscious choice not to join Facebook for that very reason).

  10. Jen
    Jen says:

    This was great, and very helpful for me. It also lead me to other posts of yours I needed to read! I have been recently laid off and started a blog myself.

    I am a pile maker, list writer, do to much research too. I have been working on sticking to my lists and making less piles. I save too much and end up not reading most of what I save. Working on it.It is a hard habit to break!

    I have become an instant fan of your blog, THANK YOU!

  11. Alyssa Carter
    Alyssa Carter says:

    Ha! I totally agree with everything, but it’s funny because I’ve had this tab open since 9am waiting for ‘time’ to read it. It’s now 5pm…

    Love this quote – Information is not something you have time for or don't have time for. Information is either helping you meet your goals or not.

  12. morningcain
    morningcain says:

    This is why I read your blog! Great commentary on the fallacy of “not enough time” and importance of prioritizing your time/money/caring.

  13. Shaun Fisher
    Shaun Fisher says:

    Reading blogs is like being Captain of the Internet. Why should I personally go hoist all the sails and man every porthole and swab every deck when I can find trusted conduits of information to do it for me?

  14. Lorraine
    Lorraine says:

    I think many people still don’t understand what blogging has BECOME. It really started as something like mommy-blogging, but those who found no use for what they THINK it still is aren’t curious enough to find out what may have changed. These days, saying you don’t read blogs is akin to saying you don’t read the news. True, overload can be a problem, so we all just pick and choose what we will read each day to stay informed.

  15. Sally Hanan
    Sally Hanan says:

    We all have passion. For some, the passion is to teach; for others, it is to absorb knowledge. For some, it is to drift away on the kayak of romance; for others, it is to grit teeth and get on with it. For some, it is to read blogs like yours and nod heads sagely and agree with every word; for others, it is to shake heads and let the fury of opinions cause antagonist blogs to be axed out on keyboards. Where would we be without passion? . . .

  16. Dave
    Dave says:

    @Lorraine: “True, overload can be a problem, so we all just pick and choose what we will read each day to stay informed.”

    In other words, you are too busy, you don’t have time for everything? ;) Even if you use different words to say it, you are still saying you are too busy.

  17. Lorraine
    Lorraine says:

    Dave – I think what I was TRYING to say (maybe not too well) is that, like most people, I AM busy (but not too busy to read), and try to absorb as much as I can each day. So I read…and I write…just about all day long. Blogs such as this one are great sources of insight and information. One can only read so much in a day….unless, of course, one never sleeps :-)

  18. JB
    JB says:

    I like this part: “good time management is really about understanding your priorities.” This is a great nugget that all working people–gen Y, x, boomer, man, woman–should heed.

    The spin on this topic I hear all the time is, “I don’t have time to work out.” Who does? You have to make the time. As a working mother, I get up at 5 am, every day. It means I have to go to bed at 9, which severely limits my reading time, but hey, you’ve got to prioritize.

  19. CAS
    CAS says:

    Penelope, just wanted to let you know I didn’t click on the two links you provided (which one is bigger?) You lost my trust with that ‘conflict of interest’ post. Now I wonder if those two sites are sponsoring you? and I’m not going to add my clicks in case I’m just being duped.
    It’s only a minor point but it just shows the trust link with readers can be fragile.

  20. Paul
    Paul says:

    People who say “I don’t have time to read blogs” are really saying, “I don’t have time for people, activities, or ideas of questionable status.”

    A column in 200 papers equals status, whether the smart folk still read papers or not. It shows you have been vetted, faced the gatekeepers, and found worthy. It shows you produce tangible (=money) value for others, as well as for yourself.

    That is still a meaningful distinction to the many busy, productive people who still have one foot in the pre-internet world – the world where commentary mattered more the more eyeballs it commanded.

  21. MartinT
    MartinT says:

    I must admit I’m guilty of claiming I don’t have time for anything, but I think the one section of your article that sums up my problem is the ‘Stop talking about time like you need to save it. You just need to use it better.’ I am terrible at complaining about the lack of time I have, rather than just getting on and doing something productive with it!

  22. Dr. Larry Myers
    Dr. Larry Myers says:

    Your ideas are apocalyptic & energizing. I have completed a new play called “Facebook Puberty” but feel slightly harassed by potential “friends” who seem more liek time-sucking fiends. Nice to know they are there but don’t have time to discuss someone’s cocktail dress for a ball!
    Great to hear from old alliances & new afficonados. The “Facebook” play is sequel to my “twitter thaeter” work which was done by brilliant director Kat Georges with an inspired cast in Manhattan this year.

  23. William Frost
    William Frost says:

    The wonderful thing about this country is that we have the opportunity to do so many different things.

    It’s just hard to acknowledge for myself that I made a choice of how I prioritize my time. Because I do want to do it all! But I must prioritize one thing over another and even though I am having fun doing the thing I chose, I still catch myself wistfully looking at all the things I missed.

    Will

  24. lowell meyerhold
    lowell meyerhold says:

    In San Francisco I saw a reading of Prolific Playwright Larry Myers’ play “Facebook Puberty.” This is a poignant pastiche of posted messages to friends & would be friends who may be fiends. Myers has a hold on pop culture phenonema & does up metaphorically-enriched tragicomedic
    satires. Passionately powerful it is about those who choose to live zoned out indifferent lives on line!

  25. Alex Damien
    Alex Damien says:

    Wow, great article! I have been struggling with managing my information intake and had already figured out that the problem wasn’t so much information, but the bad way I had about managing it. Your article was very helpful and enlightening. I also l LOVED your idea about time: “we are not so much saving time as figuring out the best use of our time.” because I have struggled with that one all my life. I felt time slip between my fingers but had no idea what to do about it. You really nailed it about using our time more efficiently.
    I am really loving your blog and will be hanging around. It was a true pleasure to meet you and your inspiring and helpful writing.
    -Alex

  26. Joanne
    Joanne says:

    Why is it that with all the information we have at our fingertips (as opposed to decades ago having to go to a library or home encyclopedia)the vast majority of people are so uninformed and intellectually NOT CURIOUS?
    The “Jay Walking” spot with late night comic Jay Leno makes an accurate and rather embarassing account of so called “college educated” people in and around Los Angeles. It’s indicative of the entire country who has surrendered to the “dumbing-down” effect of pop culture. A perfect example is the overuse of the word “amazing” that is used so often that it lost its effect. By the way for those who may have forgotton, a decade or so ago the word “awesome” was overused to the point of oblivion. One would only hope that America would at least be up to the letter “I” for ignoramus by this time and not still stuck on the “A” letter.

    • Paul
      Paul says:

      Let me guess, Joanne, you’re the same Joanne telling people they may not be good enough to live in New York on the discussion of “should you live in NYC?”

  27. William Mitchell, CPRW
    William Mitchell, CPRW says:

    I am more of a serial blogger. I go for long stretches without reading them, then BAM!!! I run through several career blogs at once.

    I don’t know about everyone else, but I get some excellent business and personal development ideas from blogs. In the comments, you get grassroots opinions about things instead of canned corporate perspective.

  28. Adirec Torytski
    Adirec Torytski says:

    Of course it is not possible to read everything but most people lack time management skills or the necessary patience to take the time to be informed. I am sure you take no notice of those people anyway!!

  29. Nickey
    Nickey says:

    Great article! You bring up very good points about time management. Don’t forget a great way to get help managing your time is to hire a Virtual Assistant which you can find at a site such as VANetworking.com. I really don’t think one person can do it all – and why should they if they can get trusted help?

  30. beaches
    beaches says:

    Yes, my husband does not have time to read about my disease. He finds time to watch car racing.

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