Info FOMO

When do you read all those articles that landed in your inbox this week (you know, like my blog posts)?  

If you’re like me, you let them pile up and then finally admit one day that you’re never going to read that article on program evaluation, building a culture of innovation, or preventing burnout (irony intended).  

You’re so afraid of missing out on some great idea that you never take any in – you just have lots of open tabs in your browser with articles you will finally begrudgingly close one day as your computer crashes due to overtaxed memory (an eerie harbinger of your own crash).

Or you mark the email(s) with the article(s) as unread, knowing that will serve as a great reminder to sift through these “when you can focus.” Then, you see that 78 of the 92 anxiety-provoking unread emails in your inbox are nothing more than your reminders to yourself – self-inflicted panic.

I call this INFO FOMO – those newsletters, articles, and posts that sit there for days or weeks, quietly taunting you, “You can’t miss this. It could be life changing.”

After the mass email delete or command to “close all tabs” – trust me – nothing terrible happens. No strategic disaster unfolds.

The only thing that changes is that you now feel like you can breathe again as you swear that you’ll never let this happen again.  Once again, you vow to do everything differently without really deciding what “different” will look like.

But … here’s the hard truth … you did miss something – something you have lived without anyway but that might have helped a little – sparked a new leadership awareness, offered a practical tip, or introduced you to a new idea.  

So, the purging is a necessary reset, but a last resort when we are swimming in an avalanche of our own making.

Like most well-worn patterns, the FOMO perpetuates and intensifies itself:

• We feel guilty about not reading all the articles that we convince ourselves everyone else is reading. We really should be the kind of self-reflective, constantly improving leader that everyone else is, right?

• Knowing that we are missing something incredibly important, we promise ourselves that we will set aside the time this week (until something happens that overtakes our calendar).

• Another business or social review, newsletter, or blogger hits our inbox, and the title is intriguing. It erases the last intriguing title from our memory banks.

• We click the link or save the email because we’re still not caught up from last week.

And…we’re back to square one.

The desire to be “well-informed” somehow renders us less informed.

Or maybe we are over-informed – having so much information at our disposal that we can’t figure out which of it is relevant or useful. We skim the surface but never immerse ourselves in the concepts, tips, or tricks.

Now, we don’t come up with this unhealthy pattern out of nowhere. Leadership comes with an often-unspoken expectation: that leaders should know what’s happening everywhere, all the time – sector trends, new research, best practices – and think about how it might affect their organization.

We are also supposed to always be developing as leaders – showing up more fully for our team, our board, our communities, and supporters (and they all have lots of ideas about how we should do that, right?).

In the face of all those influences, inundation is inevitable. Still, this isn’t a character flaw (no matter what your judgmental internal voice may tell you). It’s a cognitive pattern that is well worn and can be changed with some focused effort.  

Research on cognitive load shows that when the brain is flooded with information, its ability to think clearly, prioritize effectively, and make sound decisions declines. More information doesn’t improve judgment. It often degrades it.

Leadership (hell, just getting through the day) requires attention, judgment, and presence. All of these depend on mental bandwidth – a finite resource that information overload drains without your awareness – sort of like background programs on your computer monopolizing its memory in ways you cannot see but feel in sluggish performance.

Taking in too much information from too many places (your work inbox, your personal inbox, your three or four social media platforms) shows up in very real ways:

• Decision Fatigue. You are beset by the mental exhaustion that comes from making too many choices, evaluating too many inputs, and holding too many possibilities at once. Ever notice how by the end of a day full of decisions, even choosing what to have for dinner feels oddly impossible?

• Strategic Distraction. With scattered attention, you spend more time reacting than synthesizing, more time processing inputs than identifying patterns. You can’t see the forest of your organization when you’ve spent the entire day discussing, evaluating, and planting individual trees.

• Creative Ennui. A constantly overwhelmed brain has little room for original thought or insight. You need open brain space to create – a hard thing to come by when your “read this” folder is bigger than your “new ideas” one.

Ironically, many of us respond to these discomforts by chasing even more information, hoping the next article link we click will restore clarity. It might if we read the article then. Or it might not. Either way, we don’t have time.

This is the point where many leaders assume the solution is to just be harder on yourself.  You should be able to curate better, read smarter, engage your core and tough this out!

Slow down. Take a breath. It’s not about those things.

It’s about installing mental filters – conscious, intentional boundaries that determine what deserves your attention in the first place.

It’s about getting ahead of the sense of urgency before you create it for yourself. That’s the power behind seeing the pattern. You don’t have to start it if you don’t want to.

Four Filters Worth Trying

These are mental filters that have helped me.  As I read the email, I ask myself:

• Relevance. Does this materially affect decisions I’m making in the next 30–90 days? If not, release it back to the Infoverse.

• Trusted Source. Is this from one of the three to five sources that consistently deliver signal over noise for me? Ignore the rest. If someone mentions an interesting article from another publication, ask them to share the link.

• Time-Box. Am I sifting through these articles during a pre-defined information window (maximum - 30 minutes)?.

• Delegation. Is this article better suited to someone on my team? It’s OK to forward an article with a note that you haven’t read it yet but thought it might be of interest to them.

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What This Looks Like in Practice

 

A client and I worked on this issue together.  Here’s how they handled the filters. They now limit themselves to three articles per week – one each in three categories:

• Operations. One article directly connected to an internal issue they are actively working on (finance, HR, IT, culture, or systems). If it doesn’t help them lead the organization right now, it gets deleted.

• Strategy. One article that supports a strategic question they are already pursuing – growth, funding diversification, governance, equity, sustainability. This keeps their reading aligned with their direction, not distraction.

• Brand new. One article on a topic that’s unfamiliar to them. This is the permission slip to stay curious without spiraling – exposure without overload.

This simple structure does two things at once. It keeps them grounded in what matters today while still making space for learning. And just as importantly, it gives them a clear reason to let everything else go.

Just choosing the three articles that belong on the reading list is an act of focus and intentionality that leads to feeling more centered. The filter does the work.

A Practical Inbox Trick to Support This Change

Speaking of filters, to enable this change, there is a practical inbox filter you can use (it’s not all about mental filters).

I’ve set up an inbox rule that sends anything with the word “unsubscribe” straight into a folder I created called “Newsletters.”

When I have time (which I set aside to make sure I have it) and energy, I read them. If I don’t, they wait quietly without demanding my attention like an emergency that isn’t one.

This rule slows the pace of incoming information and curbs anxiety. The only willpower required is to look in that folder only at designated times with the intent of filtering my three articles to read.  

Want to Try This Out?

If any of these ideas sound helpful, I offer up a gentle challenge for this week. Try just one of the strategies below:

• Close all your tabs at the end of each workday. If you didn’t read it, you probably won’t ever.

• Delete your “read later” folder in favor of creating a newsletter filter.

• Pick your top 3 – 5 information sources (the ones you return to repeatedly) and unsubscribe from any you haven’t read in the last year.

• Pick your reading time.  Mine is 30 minutes on Saturday morning while enjoying a cup of coffee.

• Try forwarding an email to one of your direct reports and ask for a briefing at your next check-in.

Notice what happens with your attention. When you shed INFO FOMO, you increase your focus, and (probably) consume more helpful information.  

If this resonates — or if you, too, have an inbox full of noble intentions — feel free to reach out by emailing me at gary@garybagley.com or connecting with me on LinkedIn. I share thoughts like these (and occasionally confess to my own leadership FOMO) each week.