‘How To Cope With Increasing Information–And Win’ – Sean D’Souza’s Article

I don’t talk to fictional people that often, but this time I
decided to have the conversation.

“You mean you’re going to pass up everything else on the planet,
just because you haven’t seen all of Paris yet”, I asked, in my
mocking tone of voice. But my fictional friend was serious. “Yes,
I’m going to absorb every nuance of Paris, and then when I’m done,
I’ll visit other places”.

Can you see how ridiculous this conversation sounds?

And yet we have this conversation with fictional friends every day.
Well I do, at least. The conversation starts like this: “You have
so much information on your computer; so many books on your
iPad/Kindle; so many courses you’ve not done. So complete what you
have, and that’s it. Complete it from start to finish and don’t
touch another thing until you’re done”.

And this sounds like great advice, because technically speaking at
least, it sounds focused and totally devoid of distraction. And
this advice (or conversation) of stopping and prioritising is both
right and wrong. Let me give you an example.

When I started out Psychotactics, I kinda knew little or nothing
about marketing

I knew a bit about advertising. And that was it. But marketing?
Nah, I didn’t know a lot. So here’s what I did. I went to the
library and borrowed 10 books. I read them all, often jumping
between books, and completing them all out of sequence–often not
completing them at all. Then I’d borrow 10 more. And the librarian
was a bit amused. She increased my quota from 10 to 30 books. So
I’d bring 30 books home.

Can you imagine focusing on 30 books?

I can’t either. So I’d read a bit here and a bit there. And
eventually I stopped seeing the world in sequence. I saw it in
layers. The layer of one book would sit on another. One piece of
information would layer with a completely different piece of
information.

To give you an example, one book would talk about the
organisational capabilities of ants. Another book would talk about
coaching methods. A third would rattle on about how to build your
website efficiently. To most people, this lack of order makes no
sense.

But it makes perfect sense to the brain

The brain doesn’t care where the information comes from. It doesn’t
even care about the quality of the information. All it knows is
that it needs to work out the connections. And if you’re reading a
book from end to end, then you’re following the connection of the
author.

But if you’re reading three books all at once, some weird
connections are being made in your brain. And layer builds on
layer, creating a system that’s somehow an amalgam of three or
thirty other systems.

And sure it’s distracting

What could be more distracting than trying to master three (or
thirty) things at once? And that’s where the problem lies. Most of
us are trying to master things, when in fact we should be just
listening. Just listen to something, and then implement one tiny
bit of that something. For instance I was reading a book called
‘Free’, by Chris Anderson.

And that’s a chunky book, but I don’t care. I listen to that
book/or read it and I don’t care if it’s 20 pages or 300 pages. I
just implement a tiny bit. So I came back to the office and decided
to implement that tiny bit and gave away the “Brain Alchemy
Masterclass” away free. That increased our sales (and traffic) by
400% or more.

Nice book, I thought. And went and read another book on ‘The Talent
Code.’

And I implemented one tiny bit from that book. And so on. I went
back to reading ‘Free’ and then back to the book on talent and I
keep reading other books. In effect, what I was doing was layering.
And layering is different from mastering.

In effect, I was telling my fictional friend to go see Auckland,
Tokyo, Melbourne, Barcelona, because it’s not fine to just focus on
Paris, and Paris alone.

But there’s the other side called mastery

And that’s why I’ve been reading a book fort the last eight months.
Is it because I’m slow at understanding the concept? Why would I
read or listen to the book so slowly? Well to be fair, I’m not
reading slowly. I’m reading and listening to it again and again,
and again, and again.

So far I’ve read the same book about thrice; annotated it once;
listened to it four times when on my morning walk. And what I’m
aiming for is mastery of that topic.

I’m still reading other books, still listening to other stuff. But
I’m focusing on mastering one thing, bit by bit. And yes, there’s
been progress, I can assure you. In effect, I’m delving deep into
the wonders of “Paris”, just like my fictional friend.

So how do we transpose this learning to every day life?

The main point to work out is the difference between learning and
mastering. Mastery requires tons of time. You keep at this one
concept for ages. You may put it down, come back to it.

You tinker, tinker and tinker like I’ve done with InDesign since
the year 2005. You keep at it, because you know that it’s one of
the things that are crucial to you.

But you must also learn other stuff. And when you learn something,
you just implement a little bit.

Not the entire thing, just one tiny bit. And you keep learning,
because your brain keeps layering. And what you learn on one thing,
then applies to another thing.

I don’t just give this advice, I take it too

Right now I’ve got three courses going. One on Copywriting. Another
on Cartoons. Another one on Uniqueness. And there’ll be a fourth on
Pricing. Now if you’ve been on a course with me, you’ll know that
this isn’t just some information being doled out, while I disappear
from sight.

You’ll know that I’m there, checking, giving pointers, and writing
new content in the form of PDF or audio. Creating new videos and
answering forum posts all the time, as though we were on chat.

And at the same time, I answer posts in 5000bc (the membership
site), am finishing two books, reading books, meeting clients,
going out for coffee, taking week-long breaks, doing weekly
cartoons, updating the blog thrice a week etc.

And I’m doing this for the most part with no outsourcing at all
(I’m not against outsourcing, just not doing it as much as some
people do).

If this sounds exhausting, it isn’t

It’s just that my brain has learned to be efficient because of this
layering. But be aware that I didn’t start at this point. I built
it up. When I first started out, it took all my energy to do just
one course. Now four is a bit of a stretch, but not that much.

But learning stuff in one place helps me in another. And learning
stuff in another helps me in a third. The point is that you can’t
get faster and better by just trying to do one thing forever.

Your business is always going to tug both ways

You will be compelled to learn new things. And at the same time
you’ll want to implement. What you need to know is that you’re not
alone. Anyone who’s anyone, hears this fictional voice in their
head telling them to stop and focus. And you should. You can and
should focus on a few things, and then just keep learning other
things, implementing when you can.

Paris is a beautiful place.

And my fictional friend would do well to stay there his whole life,
exploring every bit of it.
But I like to travel. And yes I go back to Paris too.

It’s what keeps me sane in a completely insane world.  🙂

How do you cope with increasing information? Share your story here.