Why I’m changing the way I consume information.

And maybe you should to?

I spend a large amount of my non-working time reading and trying to learn new things. However, I’ve had this nagging feeling for a while that I’m not learning enough. Luckily, I finally realized why. It’s the Internet’s fault.

The Internet is sooo smart, and I wanted to be just like it. I wanted to know everything it knows. So I consumed every piece of information it threw at me.

I didn’t see anything wrong with this, and I actually thought I was being productive. I was able to justify everything I read, telling myself it was for personal interest, career interest, social interest, etc. It all seemed like it was important to know.

Well no shit I was feeling like I wasn’t learning enough. Reading everything you come across results in knowing a little about a lot of things, but nothing at any level of depth. The only use of this is being able to regurgitate the information to somebody in the hopes of seeming smart. Nothing of any significant value can come from knowing a little bit about something. You can’t build a product in an industry you know a little bit about. You can’t come up with an innovative idea about something you know a little bit about. You can’t even have a meaningful conversation with someone about a subject you only know a little bit about.

So yea, I’d say my feeling that I wasn’t learning enough was completely justified. Luckily, I found a pretty easy solution for it.

I started to focus my learning on the few core subjects that I have a high level of interest in that also provide a large return on my time. This doesn’t mean I’ve completely stopped reading other things that interest me. I’ve just changed my view from seeing these as productive endeavours to viewing them as a form of entertainment and have allotted them time accordingly.

What it really comes down to is consuming information more by design, not by default. The default in todays information age is reading everything people are sharing. But the quantity of information is clearly way more than our tiny little human brains can handle. We need to take back control of our learning and read with a purpose. This will allow us to grow our knowledge to a depth where we can actually do something meaningful with it.

I started this focused reading about a week ago and feel like I’ve learned more than I had in the previous months combined. You should give this a try if you find yourself in the same situation as I did. I bet you won’t even miss those articles about interstellar space travel.