Stop Drinking From the Information Firehose and Start Taking Sips
I had a Fitbit for two whole weeks.
You know, one of those watches that tells you how many steps you took (or didn’t) and how much you didn’t sleep.
Having been blessed by the goddess of sleep for rock-solid dozing for most of my life, I’m the kind of sleeper who falls asleep when I just look at my pillow at bedtime. Well, except those newborn years and the occasional 2 am freight train of looping thoughts, I’d wake up feeling refreshed and would check my watch.
Oh, I was restless a dozen times last night.
I only had a few hours of deep sleep.
I must be tired.
After obsessing for those two weeks over my sleep stats and walking in circles just to hit 10,000 steps (but what if I lift weights at the gym? Doesn’t that count for anything?)
This Fitbit is fussy — so I sold it.
In 2015, I wanted to focus on reading more. Take the time I was obsessing over shit that didn’t matter to focus on gaining knowledge.
When I first discovered Goodreads, I was excited — oh, now I can track how much I’m reading. Tracking the books I read did this thing where I wanted to read more and more so that I could see the book count go up.
You can see the year that I went a little crazy on reading all the books.
Some notes:
2015 was also a year I was commuting roughly 3 hours a day, so many were audiobooks.
67 books in a year is more than a book a week.
2017 is when I stopped commuting and left my corporate job to go full-time in my business.
I moved in 2019, 2020, and 2021 (and will move once more in 2021). Also, I no longer feel compelled to finish a book if it doesn’t grab me after a few chapters. And in early 2021, I’ve been focused on finishing my book and moving from New Jersey to Florida.
All that means taking in less information and reading fewer books.
So sure, saying I read 67 and even 45 books in a year sounds impressive… look at me; look at how much I know! (know that if you read a lot, this is about me, not you — also, I don’t read fiction).
Also know that 99% of the books I read are nonfiction. I love a good nonfiction book. Self-development, spirituality, or a memoir — these are my jam.
That’s a lot of books, and I can’t recall the details or the main lessons from any of them. So what’s the point of consuming if I’m not retaining?
Books are only an example here, but you can also swap out all the other pieces of information we consume…
Podcasts
Masterclasses
Workshops
Online courses
Blog posts
Social media posts
We’re consuming at an alarming rate and missing a key piece.
Business owners love a good online course. And courses have their place.
I take them, my clients make them, I make them, and I love them.
And something I see so many business owners missing is the DOING.
Drinking from the firehouse, racing through books, speeding up audio on podcasts.
Where's the implementation time?
When will you do the work?
Something happened when I took my time learning and implementing as I went.
I actually learned. I gave myself time to let ideas sink in and marinate.
When I take a course, I plan time each week to review materials. And I finish it BEFORE the next one.
The result:
Deeper work
Better focus
Steady progress
Growth
This is also why the The Intuitive Writing School Community was born.
Out of a need, I had to DO my writing. Because left on my own, I wasn't getting it done. I was doing all the writing for everyone else and had no creativity or energy left for myself.
Sure, we learn, too, but it's more about doing and relentless action-taking.
INTEGRATION & IMPLEMENTATION
That’s why there’s very little new content in The Intuitive Writing School Community. That’s why, instead of coaching clients every week, we take a week off to integrate and implement.
At first, I resisted the idea of integration — it felt like wasted time. I don’t want integration! I want more information! I need more information to be successful.
But more information for what exactly?
More information to consume so I can forget, not apply a single lesson, and keep moving on. For what purpose?
Integrating information lets it become a part of us, transforming and evolving how we show up, think, act, do our jobs, and live our lives.
It’s about the invisible things we can’t measure when we’re going 1,000 mph without stopping.
Winter is a perfect illustration of this — in the northern hemisphere, winter is nature’s time to take a chill pill and relax. It’s where the invisible work happens. There are things happening beneath the surface that we can’t see. The soil is resting, breaking shit down (technical terms here because you know I’m a farmer), and once it’s had a rest, spring comes, and seemingly out of nowhere, we see this bright green sprout poking up to say heyyyyy! Look at me! Look at what I made!
The same goes for information.
We’re consuming at such an alarming rate leaving undigested bits of food in our crap.
It’s like eating a week’s worth of meals in one day because it’s there.
Know what happens when you do that? You’ll shit your pants.
Take the 21 meals you’d have over a week and slow the fork down.
Audiobooks, podcasts, and courses all played at 1.5x speed.
Are you retaining any of that information? Are you speeding up because they talk too slow? Or are you just trying to finish it?
Here’s something to try the next time you:
Listen to a podcast
Read a book
Watch a documentary
Take a class
Sign up for an online course
Block additional time after you consume — maybe 30 minutes right after each lesson or a small chunk of time each day for a week after you finish something. Maybe it’s weeks at a time. These days I have a recurring meeting on my calendar on Friday mornings for one hour to go through something I’m learning. It’s my time to focus and dig deeper.
Here are some ideas for your integration time:
Write morning pages — 3 full 8x10 pages filled with whatever comes to mind
If you’re an external processor — talk out your favorite takeaways into a free transcription app or into your phone — so you can listen to it later or read your notes
Add notes to your Evernote notebook
Write a blog post or email newsletter about your lessons
Create a book club and discuss the book with some peeps on Zoom or in your living room
Give yourself wide open space to do nothing for as long as you can
When you slow down the rate at which you consume, you might discover that you have a greater capacity for retaining information, creativity, or focus.
The Intuitive Writing School Community was born out of my need to stop consuming and start creating. That’s why we’re a community about DOING the writing first.
And, we build in integration time. Each week around the new moon, we have a week without calls. I use this time to clear my personal and business calendar as much as possible too.
Everyone has 2 hours, twice a week (that’s 16 hours a month), to show up and write in an introvert-friendly space. Some come to all of them, some come to 1 a month, and some come to 1 a week.
First, we DO, then we learn. It’s the only way to turn off shiny object syndrome, perfectionism, and procrastination — doing the work.
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