With everything going on today, many people are likely to reach a point where they are overloaded with too much useless information, which can lead to a huge decrease in productivity with working. Through this article, we can look into ways that you can cut down on being overloaded with too much information at once to increase your work productivity.

#1 – Cut It Down

Every person you follow or friend on a social network is going to add to the amount of “information” that you are going to be taking in each day, or anytime you log into your account. The issue with this is that you’re going to be getting a substantial amount of information that is simply going to hurt your productivity. So cut down the number of social networks you use, and cut down the number of “friends” you have. You’ll realize just how cluttered your timeline was with things you didn’t care about once you see how clean it can actually be with useful information.

Pro Tip: Look for web services online that can help you unfriend and unfollow people on your social networks. This will make the process so much simpler for you.

#2 – Block It Off

One of the easiest ways to avoid information overload is to just turn off the social media and news sites. Personally, I constantly have the Twitter App for OS X running on my second monitor. If I was only using one monitor, this would cause a huge distraction throughout the day; however, because it’s off to the side, I only see it when I want to take a look at what’s going on. However, if you don’t have a second monitor to move the social media off to the side, just close it out. If it’s on your primary workspace, you’re not going to be able to focus on what you need to get done, and you’re going to be overloaded with news and status updates that aren’t relevant to what you’re trying to complete.

#3 – Step Away

When all else fails and you feel like you’re just too overloaded with information, just take a break. It can be for an hour, a day, a week, or however long you need to, depending on your work situation. Sometimes the only way to unwind from being overloaded with information is to just get rid of it all. While on this mini-vacation or full vacation, cut the social media down or out completely.

#4 – Unsubscribe

Odds are, you use RSS, Email, YouTube, or News sites that you are subscribed to in order to receive your news. If this is the case, you need to make sure you’re not subscribed to channels, email lists, or other sites that you aren’t interested in or reading or watching anymore. You will notice a dramatic difference in the amount of work you get done when you aren’t wasting time watching and reading news that isn’t always relevant to your work.

If you have any other tips for other readers to use to avoid information overload, leave them in the comments below!