Confessions of an Info-holic

I love reading blogs, listservs, Twitter and a variety of information from other sources.  But I could stop at any time.  If I really needed to.  

As I sit here, procrastinating by sharing my addiction with you, I have this problem:

So, 55 unread messages - 22 from my work email, 33 from home.  But it's actually worse than that.  I have 260 messages in my work inbox and 282 in my home inbox.  

And then there's the small matter of the 95 blog posts I haven't read yet.  I popped into Google Reader, while it's still operating, to see how many blogs I subscribe to.  Turns out it's 40, but I also discovered these stats:

And OK, now that's starting to look like I might be a bit out of control.  It's just that so many people have really interesting things to say, and I don't want to miss out on any of it.  It's a librarian thing.  But my iPad has beeped three times since I started this and instead of feeling that warm happy glow from incoming mail I have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

So, time for ACTION!  I need a way to balance my love of information with having time to actually implement some of the great ideas I am reading about.

Here's what I am going to do - I am going to get rid of at least half of the blogs I subscribe to. Ouch.  Choosing what to remove is going to be hard.  Especially since I just remembered another blog I was recommended in the weekend that I was going to subscribe to...

I seem to manage Twitter better than my RSS subscriptions.  I don't have notifications for Twitter so I don't feel the burden I do when I see that stupid red circle with a giant number in it telling me how many blog posts I have yet to read.

Next up, email.  My two main sources of incoming emails are from the school library listserv and the Virtual  Learning Network (vln).  Both are awesome sources of knowledge.  However, in the interests of my sanity I am going to turn off email notifications for the groups I belong to on the vln. I can still go in and check out the great discussions happening there but I won't get an email every time someone posts something in any of the seven groups I belong to.  

Don't ask me to give up the library listserv because I WON'T!  I'd probably get withdrawal symptoms or something.

Wish me luck, information addiction is a hard one to overcome, I just hope I have the willpower to get me through.