Mastery in Your Life

What does "mastery" of information overload look and feel like for me? As author of Breathing Space, people ask me.
* Keeping my desk clear, because clear spaces are an invitation for me to create.
* Having my email inbox periodically at zero because I've allocated everything.
* Maintaining a few key subscriptions via mail and a few online services.
* Focusing on the handful of key indicators that tell me how I'm doing.
* Staying in touch with knowledgeable peers, people who can share with me
* Forsaking megalomania – developing the ability to let go, not be on so many lists, not receive so many subscriptions, not have handle to much information.


How do we each to whittle down the number of choices?
*If you have too few choices in life, if you’re socially or economically disadvantaged, at any given time you tend to feel stressed and anxious. You don't have a lot of control.
* If you have too many choices, too many places to go, too many people to meet, and it's like this all the time, paradoxically, you also feel stressed and anxious. You get to the point where too many choices leads to a condition that Alvin Toffler called "future
shock."
*In any given field, if you have 12 trade magazines, you want to immediately narrow down the field to maybe 2 to 4 and form a smaller subscriptions list. It's possible for you to not only stay on top, but to also feel more comfortable.
* Who are the best and brightest in your industry or your company? What are they reading? What have they selected and why? That's usually a pretty good indicator that those publications are highly viable information sources.
*When the number of choices starts to climb, your quest is to narrow the field to a manageable few.