I went to a seminar last weekend. I’d wanted to go and pulled out all the stops to make sure I got there, even taking an overnight coach/ferry trip and arriving at my destination about an hour before it started with very little sleep!

I knew before I went that there would be quite a few speakers at this event and that they would all do their best to get as many people to buy the products or services they were going to promote at the end of their talk.

That I was prepared for and had a strategy in place for it.

Most of these speakers had lots and lots of free useful information to give and there were twenty of them over four days. In fact all of them did.

A couple of the speakers were inparting something I already knew or it just wasn’t relevant to me, so I simply disgarded it.

For the rest though there was either a lot of new and very relevant information or tit-bits of information I could add to my knowledge base. I left every evening buzzing with excitement at the possibilites of how this new information could be used and exhaustion at having absorbed so much of it.

What I hadn’t taken into consideration was the overwhelm of information overload.

We get to a saturation point, where we just have to stop! Because this event was not at home, and it isn’t an on-going event I didn’t have the luxury of slowing down or simply just stopping.

I took copious notes that made sense to me and instead of trying to process them I switched off on the last day. This week I’ve glanced over them a few times, but I’ve not pored over them like I had planned to do before I went to the event.

I simply need the time to let my brain rest before going back to tackle and break down all the information into managable chunks.

How often don’t we allow ourselves to simply stop and take stock of what is overwhelming us? We feel the pressure of having to get so many things done within a limited time frame.

Each added item to be completed simply adds more pressure to the mental pot, which if left untended will eventually explode.

For some people it means a complete breakdown, for others it means walking away from something or someone they can no longer deal with in a competent manner.

I used to live like that, feeling the pressure of overwhelm, of having to get so much done. Now I know, for my own well-being, that when I feel overwhelmed with something that it’s time to slow down, take stock, adjust the plans and rest.

My brain is simply telling me to take a break. When I do that, I find that I can tackle the issues with a renewed energy which gives me much better results.

What way to you deal with information overload and overwhelm?