Managing information overload
Over the last month, the actions of governments around the world have significantly increased in speed and economic impact. Their archaic strategies to regulate the population feel like confused parents, who pretend to have everything under control, while clearly freaking out inside.
And considering their backgrounds, it’s pretty obvious why many leaders are resorting to market manipulation, surveillance, or delusional rhetoric.
Ray Dalio keeps beating the drum of a rapidly changing world order, but what is the next world order? And how might we navigate this chaos?
In a previous article, I mentioned my intention to explore strategies for individuals, teams, and investors to transform our economy into a more sustainable and decentralised one.
I still believe this transformation will require strategies that will outlive the status quo and benefit from web3-native infrastructure; however, I also realized that it would be too extensive to discuss in a single article, so I will try to start small and expand over time.
From being controlled to controlling oneself
Governments and companies try to control and direct us, but clearly, the ruling elite currently creates more suffering than balance.
We’re overloaded with information, mostly shared with the intention to indoctrinate rather than inform. It’s stressful to cut through the noise, identify what’s relevant, and decide how we want to act.
Historically, times of significant social transformation and a “changing world order” resurfaced note-taking practices, usually as a consequence of information overload and a need for sense-making.
Egyptian and ancient Greek documentation used marginal annotations, indexing scrolls, and categorization for legal, medicinal, and religious purposes.
The invention of the printing press coincided with spiritual hunger and the spreading of universities. It also led to the innovation of different indexing and annotation systems.
The commonplace book was used to synthesize vast amounts of knowledge between the Renaissance and the 19th century.
Zettelkasten and the Cornell Note-Taking system emerged during the Industrial Revolution to bridge adjacent thoughts and support scientific research.
Even though in educational environments, note-taking is already used as a complementary tool for reading and observing, most of our educational (and career) paths are becoming less and less linear, requiring a self-directed approach to sense-making.
At least in my experience, learning mostly from mentors, the internet, and my mistakes, I find most of my peace and direction after regularly answering the following questions in writing:
What am I doing right now?
What are my goals? Where do I want to develop myself?
What has worked for me in the past to reach similar goals?
Who has similar goals and can help me?
What did I learn?
If we’re moving away from an economy based on centralised control, reflective note-taking seems to be one of the strategies that help us take back control, focus, and navigate the complexity of our time.
If you enjoy reading my articles, please leave a comment to let me know your thoughts so I can improve. And if you have friends who would find this topic interesting, feel free to share this publication with them. See you next time!
Reference material on note-taking:
Blair, A. (2004). Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age. Yale University Press.
Lorraine Daston (2004), "Taking Note(s)," Isis 95, no. 3: 443–448.
Writing About Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process, James W. Pennebaker
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x Psychological Science 1997 8: 162
Expressive Writing Can Increase Working Memory Capacity, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2001, Vol. 130, No. 3, 520-533
The Reflective Journal, Barbara Bassot
“From being controlled to controlling oneself”…and then confronting the illusion that I am in control at all…sometimes oddly freeing.