Sunday, October 26, 2014

A virtual information buffet

We all know the buffet situation: There is much more to try than we can possibly eat, let alone does it all fit onto the plate. In a restaurant we would never order "a little bit of everything", but with all those delicacies right before our eyes it is hard to chose. We end up feeling ill because we couldn't refrain from at least tasting everything.

It is somewhat similar to bookmarking pages on the internet. Your computer is a plate and the web is an information buffet. But just because you have got enough disk space, it does not mean all problems are solved. When are you going deal with all the articles you stumbled upon, but didn't have time to read immediately? I personally faced the same difficulty when I found out that Seth Godin offers a lot of his ebooks for free. First I had the intention to download them all right away, although I knew that I wouldn't read them before finishing the books I already started with. Eventually I decided to wait. It is possible - yet very unlikely - that I will not be able to access those PDFs for free in the future. But otherwise I'd gradually accumulate more books than I can ever engage in.

Useless gathering and hoarding is part of a scarcity mindset as opposed to an "abundance mentality". When you pay close attention to its motives, you will discover a fear of missing out on something and foregoing opportunities. In the worst case this may distract us from landing a truly big shot when it is time to.

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