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In your daily life, you may have heard of the concept of information overload. It refers to having access to too much information or data. This week a colleague and I looked at what an abundance of digital content means from the perspective of teaching and learning. We first reviewed the article, “A pedagogy of abundance” by Martin Weller, which discusses a shift from content scarcity to abundance in the digital age. In Weller’s conclusion, he says, “an individual’s attention is not abundant, and is time-limited” (p.10).
With that thought in mind, my colleague and I set out to explore how abundant content affects us in our own lives, and how we might be able to manage our time better to adjust to the increasing demands on us as master’s students. This would allow us to absorb more digital content than we have previously been accustomed to. Below are our findings.
Amber’s Findings: Researching time management is a waste of time
My search for “time management” as a general topic of interest yielded about 72 million results from Google’s search engine. The search engine suggested other popular search phrases I might want to try as well, such as: What is good time management? What is your strategy for time management, How do I manage my time better? How do you manage your study time?
With thousands of search results already at my fingertips, I chose not to look for even more.
Instead, I chose to focus on the first page of the results. Sources I recognized were articles from Mindtools, Wikipedia, Psychology Today, Entrepreneur.com, The Guardian, and Harvard Business Review, while the few I did not were from Quartz, Top Universities, University of Kent, and Skills You Need. Many article links led to me to a web page with links to more articles (but very little actual content), leading me to a sense of quickly being overwhelmed by the information available. As a first pass I did not read the articles but skimmed the headlines, looking for information on time management that I (1) did not already know and (2) also found useful.
Most articles defined time management, explained the importance of time management skills, and provided high-level strategies to help manage time. Strategies included the need to prioritize, set goals, create task lists, delegate, and minimize distractions, among many others. Many articles reiterated the same information, most of which I already knew, and the remainder was too general to be of any practical value. After reading just a few articles, I felt like I was wasting my time.
Terra’s Findings
The essence of time management is two-part: part one, deciding what to do, and part two, doing it (Pavlina, 2006). A cursory examination of the research hinted that there is more content to be found on part two and less on part one, and this instinct was confirmed by at least one researcher (Pavlina, 2006). Often the biggest challenge is figuring out the best uses of your time (e.g., planning and prioritization), rather than on executing (e.g., time audit, calendar blocking, delegation). Perhaps the best piece of advice offered for addressing part one – “what to do” – is to begin with goals and a vision. Farrell (2017) says, “the goal setting process is the key to managing time as it is the basis for articulation of priorities, determination of action items, and personnel deployment… [and] the vision of the organization is the foundation of determining if time is being utilized to advance or manage the organization.” Although the author was clearly focused on time management in a professional context, it is easy to see how this holds true for our personal lives as well: by examining our personal goals and vision for the future, we can isolate and articulate our core priorities, and then manage our time to suit.
The notion that optimal time management is dependent on person and context cropped up frequently in my examination of the literature. One researcher cited personal workstyle preferences and organizational culture as key strategy selection drivers and suggested that individuals must test a variety of different time-saving strategies to uncover those that are most suitable for them (Farrell, 2017). In other words, there is no universal solution; the best approach to optimizing your time management is trial and error. Given the abundance of research on this topic in both open and closed domains, there is no shortage of test material with which to do so.
Final thoughts: abundant content and limited time is a recipe for disaster
The quest for optimal time management is universal; whether we are looking at personal or professional endeavours, we all seek to spend our time in the best possible way. It is no surprise then, that content on “time management” is abundant, and both research and interest in the topic transcend disciplines. In reference to the glut of content on the topic, one researcher ironically noted: “As leaders, we lack the time to figure out all of the time saving strategies!” (Farrell, 2017, p.216).
Returning to Weller’s point, having access to abundant content definitely conflicts with having limited time to absorb it. It seems many content creators failed to recognize a key characteristic of their end user: readers looking for information about time management are short on time. Clicking through pages of links, watching videos, flipping through slideshows, reading long pages of texts, and taking quizzes may be great instructional design features for other target audiences, but not for this one. A wealth of content under pressure can easily lead to frustration and giving up.
Perhaps content curation could be an effective solution for managing an abundance of content in today’s digital society. What are your thoughts?
References
Farrell, M. (2017). Leadership Reflections: Time Management. Journal of Library Administration, 57(2), 215-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2017.1281666
Pavliva, Steve. (2006, Feb. 6). Time Management [web log comment]. Retrieved from: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/02/time-management/
Weller, M. (2011). A pedagogy of abundance. Revista Espanola de Pedagogia, 69(249), 223–236. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004