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by Marlou on May 8, 2019 1:11:00 PM
Every year TNO and CBS monitor the work situation of almost 60.000 employees in Holland. And the results of this year’s research were quite surprising! Almost three out of ten employees acknowledged that they had difficulties to process the amount of data they received in one day.
It is an unintentional result of the digital era in which we life. Not even a decade ago, you had to call or meet with colleagues in order to discuss work related matters, while nowadays it has become so easy to send colleagues a quick update by e-mail. As a result, we receive more messages in a quicker period of time. Information systems, designed to better organise those new data flows, often unwittingly provide extra administrative tasks. We want to become more productive, but instead we are doing the opposite!
Managers experience the biggest information overload
Especially highly educated people suffer information stress. Managers in the Healthcare, ICT and education sector, receive so many streams of information, that they don’t know how to deal with it anymore. It not only causes you a lot of extra energy, it's also disastrous for your focus, productivity and motivation. Our brain is not used to deal with multitasking. Time to act!
There is hope..
The unintended problem we have created ourselves, can also be solved by ourselves. Always ask yourself the following question: which type of information is truly relevant for and within my daily work? If you think about this beforehand, it becomes easier to manage your information channels.
At Plek we already do this since all our channels and groups are fully personalised and easy to adjust. Decide yourself which information you want to have on your homepage. By becoming a member of a personalised group for example. Within Plek there are team groups, department or project groups. At Plek we always help our clients to make the right choices for a group structure, to avoid multiple irrelevant groups.
Users can also redesign their own news and information blocks within their own homepage. You can also minimise a block of information if you temporarily don’t want to see it anymore. Via Push notifications on your mobile, desktop or e-mail, you will receive the most important news updates. With the possibility to easily adjust those notifications, to avoid information overload!
A few last tips!
Information stress starts with a common approach. Make good agreements within your team to avoid information overload. Maybe you want to stop sending information in the evening or during the weekends or at specific moments during the week. When you leave for holiday, turn on the Plek holiday snooze to fully relax without receiving any notifications.
Last but not least: make sure do to the most important things early in the morning. Or after a break because productivity gets a boost when your brain has been recharged again!
P.S. Did you see our free product tours?
