Information Overload

Law.com has a piece on information overload for attorneys, with some discussion of legal research here:

Confronting today's practitioner is a virtual onslaught of daily information that requires organization, analysis and response. Although statistics vary on the amount of information received by an individual in a given day, by 2003, there were over 15,652 Web sites dealing with the issue of "information overload" and its consequences.

The culprit, of course, is technology and the myriad methods by which it throws this information at us. But the receipt and processing of this information is critical to our professional development, and our professional survival now depends on it.

Our daily informational sources are manifold. They include direct, personal contact; telephone and voice mail; text-messaging, telefax and e-mail; and regular mail and FedEx (or its equivalent). We also daily access printed newspapers and magazines, as well as their online equivalents and an infinite variety of Internet resources. As a whole, the influx may appear overwhelming, but taken individually, we must recognize that each component provides a valuable and necessary resource. The key to our professional success now lies in organizing this informational flow and making it work for us.

[JJ]