Time to Think, Time to Work... All Gone!

We live in an information rich society and we are under constant bombardment of information and data. As a student or professor, being able to manage your time and effectively use it is critical to your success. As a librarian, I quickly came to the realization that there is so much that I could learn on a daily basis that I felt overwhelmed. A great resource for dealing with this (currently at my desk, sorry; I'll put it back on the shelf so you can see it) is the "Information Anxiety" series. Information Anxiety and Information Anxiety 2 by Richard Saul Wurman(link to Literature Resource Center: Biography Info). These are a bit dated, especially in their references to the print and internet industries, but the messages are still very applicable. One golden nugget is:

There is a Danish proverb that the one who is afraid of asking questions is ashamed of learning.

The books cover a variety of angles like, how we learn, how much you know and making sense of information. While there are specifics in every chapter, the primary goal is to help you with all of your information intake and output from academia to your 'real life'.

Another big part of having the ability to ingest all of this information is to have down time. I found an interesting bit on the BBC World News site, "No Time to Think?" that says,"I can say that all great creators, without exception, have taken breaks," says Buzan. "A minimum of two a day." "Leonardo Da Vinci had a bed in his studio and when patrons accused him of wasting time, he said 'If I don't do this, you don't get the work.'"

"I can say that all great creators, without exception, have taken breaks," says Buzan. "A minimum of two a day." "Leonardo Da Vinci had a bed in his studio and when patrons accused him of wasting time, he said 'If I don't do this, you don't get the work.'"

"...You have to disconnect from what stops you thinking - just stop the flow for a bit, not to a hermetic extent. You could unplug the TV or not get a daily paper for a few days."