824: Thriving amid Information Overload with Ross Dawson

Pete Mockaitis
Ross, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Ross Dawson
Wonderful to be talking to you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom about Thriving on Overload: The 5 Powers for Success in a World of Exponential Information. But, first, could you tell us a little bit about your knack for musical instruments? I understand you can play many. How did you learn how to play them all? Any tips and tricks, or any special performances that really leap to mind?

Ross Dawson
Well, it’s just at the age of 14, I said, “I just want to play guitar,” so I gave a little money to my dad, he bought me a guitar, and I actually, at the time, had some cassette tapes and a little book, and I taught myself. So, I teach myself just about everything, and so it was the guitar included, and then I sort of worked out, “Okay, well, that note on the guitar, is that a note on the piano?” And so, I looked out on how to play the piano, and learned a couple of other instruments. It’s all self-taught.

Sometimes it’s useful. Often, it’s useful to have teachers but I think there’s so much we can discover ourselves in the way we find our own ways of doing things if we do them ourselves. And that’s certainly been my musical journey where I just do what I want to do, and I enjoy it, and not necessarily following what anyone’s suggesting to me I should be doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Fun. Okay. And were you in a band at some points along the way or any noteworthy performances?

Ross Dawson
Yes, just lots of bands along the way, mostly pretty early on when I was at school, when I was university, and then after that, yeah, a number of other bands, and playing guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion. And I’ve been certainly keen to get back to it for quite a while, and it’s a bit harder when you have kids and you got busy and so on, but working on some ways to use technology plus instruments to be able to create my own one solo show live.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fun.

Ross Dawson
So, working it too.

Pete Mockaitis
Looking forward to it.

Ross Dawson
So, see you if I actually get on stage at some point.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. Well, one final question on the music scene, did any of your bands have funny names? Band names are our favorite.

Ross Dawson
Nothing that I…well, funny, I don’t even remember them all. Platinum Blues was one of the sorts of bigger bands that I was in. So, this idea of those blues but we were sort of gilding it. So, that was, I suppose, one of the steps along the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, Ross, now tell us a little bit about Thriving on Overload. Any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made along the way on this stuff?

Ross Dawson
Well, I suppose, in a way, Thriving on Overload is counterintuitive in the sense we live in a world of overload, but we can thrive on it. I think this is a fundamental belief that our brains are not adapted to the world that we have created. Incredible inventors that have made, among other things, a profusion of information, and screens, and always on, and this is something is what we have brought ourselves, but it is not something that our brains are ready for, so we are overloaded. We are overwhelmed. It’s just natural. It’s impossible not to be, in a way.

But I do believe that it is possible to thrive on that. And this is, I suppose, a way where we can become, you know, learn, change how we do things, what we do, our attitudes, practices. And that, in a way, means we can transcend who we have been to be more adapted to the world that we live in. So, this is a journey, we can learn things, we can progress, and so that’s something which is not obvious but I think this really is our most important capability that we need to develop.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then can you paint a picture for, if there’s any cool studies or data or research, which really reveals just what’s possible in the realm of thriving on overload? Like, what’s the typical level of thriving/floundering in the midst of overload versus what can really be possible if you master this stuff?

Ross Dawson
There’s a whole set of capabilities to develop the capability to thrive. So, the subtitle of the book is, The 5 Powers for Success in a World of Exponential Information. Those five powers are purpose, framing, filtering, attention, and synthesis. So, we need to be able to dig into each of those and how all those fit together. But if we want to distill this, I suppose, to research and some data and some one frame, one piece of research or sort of now what is compounded research is into multitasking.

And some people think they’re good at multitasking, and the reality is that now more recent studies on what’s actually happening in our brain shows that when we think we are multitasking, as we think we are doing two things at the same time, our brain is actually switching from one thing to another thing, and then back to the other thing, and then back to the other thing.

Now, if we’re simply listening to a podcast while we’re cooking dinner, that’s probably achievable. That’s not too hard to go back and forth. But if we’re doing something which is contemplatively taxing, and we’re then checking our email, or trying to watch TV, or whatever it is, it’s simply not functional. So, studies have shown, in fact, that those people who think they are good at multitasking actually underperform those people that don’t think they’re good at multitasking because they’re trying to do something which is literally not possible. Our brains cannot multitask.

So, this is where we are put in a world with so much wonderful things going on, and we try to pay attention to multiple things at the same, and it’s simply, yes, you can do it by switching your attention, but you will perform less than you’ve done before. Now, taking research at the other end of the spectrum, those who are trained in the single practice which takes our attention the most sustained is meditation, which is simply the practice of keeping our attention sustained on one thing for a period of time where we can continue to be on attention on one thing for a period of time.

And you don’t need to be a meditator to get there. There are other ways to be able to get there, and there are people who switch everything off, and for three hours at a time, aside from getting up and stretching and having a drink of water or whatever they need along the way, will be focused on task for a period of hours.

And the reality is that it’s only a very small proportion of people that are able to and do take that time and capacity, develop that three hours of attention, spend it on one thing in which they can achieve incredible things. Whereas, the vast majority of people, it’s literally, their attention is not on one thing for more than literally a few minutes at a time, at best, because they’re just strayed by thoughts or notifications or alerts.

And those are the two poles. One is eternal distraction, eternal attention watering all over the place where we can never achieve that much. And those people that demonstratively can keep their attention on one thing achieve extraordinary amounts of things in quite limited periods of time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that does sound exciting in terms of what’s possible. Now, to zero in on that three-hour figure, I’m thinking about ultradian rhythms and just what’s possible for the human organism. Is that three hour like three hours but with, like, a couple minute bathroom and beverage break? Or, how does that unfold, that three hours?

Ross Dawson
Yes. So, to your point, the basic rest activity cycle is generally understood to be 90 minutes, where our brains do go through cycles of, amongst other things, ability to be more focused and less focused. And so, we do need to take that into account, and our brains are different, we could be more or less tired, those all sorts of different factors, but 90 minutes is a reasonable guideline.

So, three hours is something where it is very possible for anybody to spend three hours in reasonable degrees of focus but that’s probably more than as much as most people would want to achieve in a day. The way I put it is that everybody should, for at least 90 minutes, at least once a week, have a complete focus time.

And that’s something which, again, is already challenging for most people. Most people don’t take 90 minutes out where there’s no distractions, nothing interrupting them, where there’s only one thing, they can’t escape from it, and they do get on with it. It actually takes practice to get into that but you can still achieve a lot as you get to that 90-minute period and I think that’s a good starting point for most people.

If you’re used to just being distracted and checking your email all the time, whatever it may be, make sure you have a time of 90 minutes, no distractions, no notifications, nobody’s going to interrupt you unless it’s the end of the world, and you have one task to get on with, and you just do that for 90 minutes, and do that once a week. That’s just incredibly starting point. And from then, you can start to build it.

So, in terms of some of those cycles, one of the most famous is the Pomodoro technique, which you spend 25 minutes of focus, five minutes break, 25 minutes of focus, and five minutes break, sometimes a bit longer break, and then you do that three times, which basically takes you to 90 minutes, have a little bit of a longer break, and then you do that three times again, 25 minutes plus five minutes break. And that works for a lot of people.

Personally, I think that the more flexible approach, as in if you feel you’re in the groove, then why suffer 25 minutes, or if you just feel a little bit of a break first that’s earlier. So, we can let our…some people work to that structure, having a time run, 25 minutes and five minutes break, that works for them perfectly. Other people, I feel that 25 minutes, often I’ll just want to keep on going, I won’t want to stop. But when I’m ready, I can take a stop, wander outside, pick up the guitar, whatever it may be.

So, I think if we get into this practice, what we do need is find our practices, find our routines that work for us, find what times of day is the best time to do this, but just making sure that you are starting with at least carving out some time, which is this what I call deep-dive time. That’s when you can achieve an incredible amount in very limited periods.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, then so we’ve got a sense for what that means with regard to minutes of focused attention, which is handy. Could you share a cool story if there’s a particular case or poster child, if you will, that really illustrates what that can mean in practice for one’s results, career, productivity when they get there?

Ross Dawson
I think the reference point for, certainly for me, and I think for a lot of people is writing books. There’s pretty significant proportion of people say they aspire to write a book at some time in their life. You are never going to get there unless you have the focused time and you’ve blocked that out. So, that’s where anybody can say, “All right, I would love to write a book.” It could be a fiction book, it could be a memoir, it could be about this big idea you’ve have, it could be to show you’re the expert in your field, whatever it may be.

And, yes, when I wrote my first book, before I wrote my first book, I said, “I think society overweighs the value of a book. Being an author is an incredibly wonderful thing and society gives a lot of value to authors and, yeah, it’s a good thing but it’s…so I’ll play that game, if that’s what it is.” I have to say that after writing the first book, I say, “Well, actually, probably authors do deserve some respect.”

But it is something where you do need to carve out the time. So, anybody who writes a book will have an incredible accomplishment, it doesn’t matter how many books or copies are sold, you will have achieved something of value, something to point to, one which will advance your reputation, your career, your abilities, you’ll learn a lot through doing that. So, I think it is a wonderful endeavor, and that is something which can only be done with focused time that is blocked out, it’s simply for that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, there it is, it’s kind of binary, on or off. Certain accomplishments such as writing a book are just impossible without the ability to have that focus for an extended period of time that is 90-ish minutes or thereabouts or even greater. And then I think in this age where there are different media and creations, we could maybe think of the book as a proxy or a representative for any sort of, I don’t know, magnum opus or great work of sorts that they’re not cranked out in 15-minute break in between Instagram sessions.

Ross Dawson
Exactly. To your point, if you want to be a YouTuber, today the bar for YouTube videos is pretty high, as in it’s a very high quality. If you want to do X videos on a particular topic and show you’re the expert, you’ve got to be pretty good because there’s a lot of other really good people out there. And, again, that’s not going to happen by itself.

You’ve got to say, “All right. Okay, I’ve got to work out. All right, what’s my topic? What’s my script? Where do I get my video assets? What are the overlays that’s going to be?” This is, again, going to take focused time. It’s not going to happen just by filling in in between other things. And what you can do, for example, in 90 minutes of focus will far exceed what you can do just trying to do bits and pieces while you’re interrupted along the way.

So, this is a way of amplifying your productivity, but it’s also a way of just being more…creating more value from the world we have. And I think that this fundamental equation for almost all of us are input as information. It’s what we read. It’s what we experience. It’s our conversations. It’s what we see in the world. It’s what we live, what we notice. It’s what we make of the world. It’s our knowledge. It’s our understanding.

And then it’s sharing it. it’s creating value with that. It’s building a startup. It’s applying it to our work. It’s making better decisions. It’s seeing opportunities. It’s creating YouTube videos. It’s creating blogposts. It’s creating articles. It’s having more intelligent conversations that add value to more people. It’s the input and the output. And both of those require this structure to how it is we bring our information together and building knowledge. And the structure in our work lives and to how it is we create something of value from it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so you mentioned these five powers: the purpose, the framing, the filtering, the attention, the synthesis. Can you expand upon those in terms of, I guess, a definition, and maybe some top do’s and don’ts for really developing each of these powers?

Ross Dawson
Certainly. So, just at a high level first. Purpose is simply knowing why. Why is it that you deal with information, do what you do in the first place? Second is framing, which is being able to literally build frameworks for your knowledge, for your understanding, for your information so you can piece together how they are connected. Filtering is being able to look at the information source that you have, and to be able to discern what it is that serves you, that serves your purpose, and what it is that doesn’t, and being able to make sure that you leave the ones, the information, that’s not useful.

The fourth mode is attention. So, we’ve been talking about this idea of deep diving. We have extended focus for a period of time, but that’s not the only attention mode. For example, we might have scanning, we might say, “All right, there’s a period of time when I’m just going to look at all my information sources. I’m going to stop and then move on to then perhaps reading and taking that in,” so there’s different attention modes.

And the fifth one is synthesis. And this is, in a way, pulling everything together so that it’s rather than just be lots of information, we can make a body of knowledge, we can understand the system, we can be able to have the foundations to build something of value. So, these are the five powers, and we can sort of perhaps flip over the year digging into specific questions. I can obviously go into greater depth on any of those, but I think laying those out as the five is critically important.

So, where would you like me to dig into from those topics?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I’d like to hear what sorts of practices enable us to develop and deploy each of these powers well versus what is the antithesis, the kryptonite, of each of these powers that are to be avoided?

Ross Dawson
So, we have to start with purpose, and the way I frame that in my book Thriving on Overload is around our relationship to information. So, we have a relationship with money, we have a relationship with food. In the same way, we have a relationship with information, there’s a lot of parallels with our relationship with food and relationship with information where we can have a not very positive relationship with food where we snack on chocolate all the time or eat when we’re stressed and so on.

And, in fact, there are some quite similar habits, sometimes, which people have with information. But we can also have a positive relationship with food, where we eat healthy food, and we feel that is sustains us, and we don’t have too much food when it’s not something that we truly want. So, with information, the same thing, where we can have a positive relationship with information, which is formed by going to what actually is good for us, which makes us feel happier, which inspires us, which informs our ability to achieve what we want to achieve, and is something which we’re not always indulging and snacking in all the time.

And so, I propose this idea of intermittent fasting information diet. So, some people, for food, they say, “All right, I’m not going to eat for a period of time. Come back and eat a meal, whatever, but I won’t eat anything at all in between.” And I think that’s a very valuable approach with information as well. We can say, “Well, I’m not going to check social media, I’m not going to check the news headlines, I’m not going to indulge in those things because, for a period of time, there are things that I want to do. I want to play with my children. I want to read something which is important, which I’ve decided is something I want to spend my time on, and I want to be able to write my book,” whatever it may be. So, we can vary those things.

But this all comes from purpose in the sense of understanding what it is we want to achieve, what it is we think is worthwhile, and, as a result, being able to determine the information that’s not useful. And the antithesis of that is simply not knowing, “Oh, that’s interesting. A bit about the celebrity news,” or, “Oh, see this horrible thing about what’s happening in politics, and spend some time looking at that.” And none of that serves us because we’re not clear on our purpose.

And so, having that purpose is an absolutely fundamental starting point to simply being able to prosper and know what it is that is valuable to us in a world which is often overwhelming.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Ross, I’d love to expand on that notion of purpose in the specific context of reading the news. Sometimes, when people read the news, they say things like, “I want to be informed.” And that strikes me as a little bit vague as far as a purpose or a goal goes because, in a way, there is infinite news one might be informed or not informed about. And so, it seems kind of thin in terms of, “My goal in reading this news is to be informed.”

And sometimes I wonder, maybe just because I don’t like reading a lot of news. I guess my purpose, the way I go into this is say, “I’m going to spend approximately 40 minutes scanning the headlines of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal so that I have a general clue as to the happenings in the world so I am able to converse with people,” as opposed to going, “Huh? What?” And so, that’s my purpose when I’m going to the news.

And it doesn’t take that long, and I find that if I spend too much time on the news, one, I’m pathologically curious, which is great for a podcast interviewer but not so great for a news consumer because, like, two hours later, it’s like, “Okay, I’ve read all about the chess cheating scandal, but how does that serve me?” I found it very interesting and I know I can comment a lot about it, Ross, if you have any questions, but it’s not really enriched me much.

So, can you share with us some example articulations of what might be some rich, useful, best-in-class articulations of purpose when it comes to approaching information of the news?

Ross Dawson
So, a couple of points just with what you’re saying. So, I think that’s wonderful in the sense of, first of all, you mentioned you take 40 minutes, and that’s exactly what I say. We need to have a period of time when we say this, “I’m going to scan the headlines and no more.” But news is one category, in a way, of information. It’s what I framed in the book as society, in a sense of, “What do we want to know about what is happening in society at large?”

And we said, the purpose is, “What is our purpose for it? Why is it that I read the news?” And you articulated, again, a quite clear purpose, so you can have intelligent, or at least, somewhat formed conversation with people, and you only need the headline for that to be able to not know…or, to actually know what’s happening as opposed to having the idea of what’s happening. And that’s entirely valid.

So, some of the reasons why you would want to go in the news is to be an informed voter. Now, that’s something which you probably can catch up with just before you need to vote. You don’t need to be constantly…

Pete Mockaitis
The day before, binge.

Ross Dawson
You don’t need to be constantly reading the news all year round in order to be able to vote, whatever it is that you vote. But that’s one valid reason. Another is to be able to have intelligent conversations with your friends you want to have conversations with. Another is to be aware of the things which are changing in your community, and so that gives you a geographic for this, “All right, I would like to see news about my local community.”

Another is to say, “Are there any things which are going to impact my children’s opportunities?” I might say, “All right, if they’re at a particular age, I might be looking at developments in university or college admissions,” or something like that. So, these are things which you would start to be focused. But this comes back to the domains for our relationship with information.

And one of the first ones, one of the most important ones is expertise. We do have to choose our area of expertise to be clear, “This is what I am an expert in, or I’m aspiring to be an expert in, or something which I think I’ll be useful to be an expert in in a few years from now,” and being quite clear around that, writing that down, “I will become…” or, “I am an expert in a particular area,” quite clearly defined, and that gives you clarity on what information, what sources you need to take in, what you need to distill so that you can become that expert. If you’re just skimming across the surface, you’ll never be an expert in anything, and that is not very useful in the current state of the world today.

Another is in wellbeing, “So, what is it that I’d want to know about my own wellbeing, well, the wellbeing of my loved ones? What is it that’s going to help me to have a better diet to be able to help support the conditions of people in my family?” So, it’s perfectly valid to have some passions. All right, so sports teams or there’s nothing wrong with celebrity news as long as you don’t let that expand to take over all of your news.

So, I think there’s different categories around helping you decide what your purpose is. There is information you can look for. You can look in your expertise, your ventures, whether that’s a startup, or whether it’s a community garden, whatever it is, in terms of your wellbeing, in terms of your relationship to society. These are all things that we can think through in order to become effective.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Ross, what you really are crystallizing for me is, and this is so helpful. Thank you. Hopefully, it’s good for listeners too. But I find, internally, I have a response of frustration or irritability when I see a news headline or blog article, or whatever, it says, for example, “Topic: What you need to know.” And I’m thinking, “There is no possible way you know what I need to know because our contexts are so wildly different.”

Like, the person running the political campaign for this politician needs to know way more and way different things than someone who may or may not vote for that person months down the road, or someone who’s managing the budget or employees in that industry. I guess maybe because I’m a content creator myself, I’m prickly or snobbish about the quality, but it’s like, “What you need to know, there’s no way one article can provide what everyone needs to know because everyone’s contexts are so different and their purposes that they establish are so different.”

So, Ross, thank you for clarifying what was simmering under the surface for me. And is it fair to say you’re going to have a hard time writing a piece of content that’s what you need to know for all peoples in one fell swoop?

Ross Dawson
Well, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess I just wanted to make sure. Thank you, Ross.

Ross Dawson
But what it comes back to is saying we need to know it is health, and we don’t necessarily know that. So, what I described is we need to develop our own personal information plan. So, to complement the book, I’ve created some software or course where it takes people through that journey of identifying their purpose, and their expertise, and their areas, and their sources, and how they can use that, and the times they’re going to use that and do that.

You don’t need the book or the course, though they’re obviously designed to be as useful as possible. But we all need to decide, “What is my own personal information plan? What is it that matters to me? What time am I going to spend on that? What time am I not going to spend on the things that don’t matter? How am I going to structure my day? How am I going to structure my time? How am I going to spend time to be focused? How am I going to make space to synthesize this and pull this together?”

Information is the core and the value, I would suggest, of almost all of your listeners, and it’s something which most people haven’t spent the time to think about, is to, “How can I do this better?” And we can all build our own personal information plan, and that starts with this idea of, “Why? What’s important to me?” And from that, a lot of that starts to flow into, “What are the structures and the habits and the practice which will enable you to achieve what you want in your life, and be happier because you’re not drowning in the things that somebody else thinks is important to you but actually isn’t?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Well, you got me thinking about email outsourcing, but we’ll move on in terms of thinking about what’s important to me, and what’s not important to me, and what’s important to other people that land in your inbox, and how can you navigate that effectively, whether it’s software or helpers or different levels of support. So, we’ll just let that percolate in people’s heads for now. But let’s hear about framing next.

Ross Dawson
So, framing is building a framework. So, we got lots of information, but that’s all just bits of information. It only becomes knowledge and understanding when we connect that, when we say, “What are the relationships between these ideas? How does this fit together? What are the foundations of my understanding of this area of expertise that I’m developing?”

So, there’s a number of tools, a lot of visual tools that we can use. So, we can use things like mind maps. We can use things like concept maps. We can just sort of just draw things on a piece of paper and draw lines with them. And there’s now more and more software which helps people to not just note, “Ah, that was interesting. Oh, that’s interesting. Oh, that’s a really good study there,” and then to actually make links between them.

So, there’s a whole new generation of software tools, including around research and obsidian, but also other ways of just using simple software tools, such as note taking tools and so on, that enables us to practice this way of framing by drawing connections in, building a lattice of knowledge which is the foundation for how it is we can become an expert, to understand things, to be able to know what the reference points and the researchers that supports what are valid ways of thinking about these spaces.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you paint a picture or give us an example of what a frame looks and sounds like?

Ross Dawson
So, on RossDawson.com/frameworks, I’ve created a whole set of what I find is useful frameworks about the future, but any mind map. I think mind maps are one of the most people are most familiar with, where you have one idea and you lay that out as a kind of visual representation of some of the ideas and how those fit.

So, one of the good things about a mind map is it combines a hierarchy. You have a central idea and then subsidiary ideas, and then subsidiary ideas, but also being able to lay that out to be able to show some of the potential relationships between these ideas. So, these are forms of structuring, and it’s different for every person as to what is most useful for them and the way in which they think.

And some people like putting things in a linear document but we’re trying to move beyond linear. So, how do we draw connections between things? And I think, often, just being able to sketch things on pieces of paper, write down ideas on a piece of paper, draw lines between them as to what the relationships between those ideas are, and then you can start to literally build a picture of an area of expertise, of what it is you’re looking at.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now let’s hear about filtering.

Ross Dawson
The filtering requires, first of all, understanding what information sources you’re going to go to. And this is not just going directly immediately. You might be using feeds, or you might be using aggregators, or you might be using different tools, but it’s building more and more this discernment of what it is that serves your purpose. So, clarity on your purpose, being able to guide that, and what it is that you need to discard.

And more and more, this is around being able to make sure that we are not succumbing to our confirmation bias, that we are not just looking for things that affirm what we want to know, but we are looking for things that complement our knowledge. So, one of the, I suppose, ways of shifting our thinking is to say, rather than being certain about things, whether that be in politics, or society, or in our area of expertise, is to start attributing probabilities to things.

So, we can say, “I think it is 90% likely, or 60% likely, that this is the case,” and then you can start to look for evidence that either increases or decreases the probability of you being right. So, there is a study of super forecasters, these people that are very good at predicting the future, and they have this implicit way of thinking about the future, or thinking about what it is they know as a probability. They’re never 100% certain on anything, because you can’t be.

But what you can do is to say, “I believe this. This is what I understand. This is the probability I attribute to that,” and then being able to look for evidence that will make your assessment that more accurate. So, this is a way of being able to actually go to the most surprising information to you and assessing that, and whether that’s valid so that you can then start to incorporate that into your mental models, or your ways of thinking, or your hypothesis around, for example, what will be a successful business.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then, I’m curious, when it comes to arriving at what sources you think are winners versus ought not to be delved into, are there any core criteria or questions that really helps separate the wheat from the chaff?

Ross Dawson
So, it’s context. So, I frame this as, first of all, thinking about yourself. So, what is it that you want to be true, for example? Or, what is it you’re looking for? Or, what are your ideas already around this? You need to be thinking about yourself first, in a way. Second is the source, and you say, “Well, is this generally reputable, to generally other people consider this to be worthy? How much research did they do?” And being able to assess.

And no source is completely accurate. The most credentialed scientific journal in the world, Nature, has had 50 retractions in the last 10 years of things where they published it, and then they say, “Oh, actually, no, that’s not right. Ignore it.” And so, we can go to the most reputable sources and then we can’t actually be completely confident. There are certain sources where you can say, “Well, okay, there’s not much credibility,” but it doesn’t mean that any source is completely off the table either, but we need to have an assessment of that.

And the third one is actually looking at any specific piece of content, one of the most important things to do is to go back to its sources in whatever way to be able to corroborate that, “Is there anything which would suggest this was also true?” And it’s incredible, when you skirt into practice of going back to original sources for what it is you read, how often it is distorted or, in some case, a complete misrepresentation of what it is it says to be reporting on, or simply just misleading.

So, the single best practice is not to take anything at face value, but to then go back, and, of course, only if it’s important enough to you to warrant that, to go back and to do your research, to delve back, to say, “Well, let’s see, where does this actually come from and how do I assess that?” So, I think this requires a curiosity.

Yes, you are trying to say, “Yes, this is a more likely to be true source, more or less likely to be a true source,” concentrate on the ones which are more reputable, of course, but also to take everything with a grain of salt, and to dig back and to build your own reference point just what you believe is true, and be able to find the evidence you can to support that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now, could you give us any top do’s and don’ts in the zones of attention and synthesis?

Ross Dawson
So, attention, there are six modes that I identify in my book. So, the first, which we discussed, is scanning, so just looking across existing news sources. Second is assimilating, where we assimilate, and we say, “This is worth spending time on.” It could be a book, it could be an article which you identified, and just rather than being distracted, you spend time and you take that into your body of knowledge.

Seeking for knowledge, explore, and I think it’s important to spend time where you’re deliberately trying to find things you would never normally find. Deep diving, which we discussed from the outset, that way of just spending focused time for a period of time. And the critical one, and one of the most ignored and most important really of the attention modes, is regenerating, which means stop doing, taking in information. And going out in nature is the most powerful way to do that.

It doesn’t need to be a forest. It can be a single tree in a park or whatever it may be. Just getting out in nature is a form of regenerating our attention. So, the best practices, the time box, let’s say, “This is the time I’ll spend on this. This is when I’ll do it. This is the time I’ll spend on that, and I’ll do that.” And to make sure that you’re spending your time deep diving each day, you’re spending time scanning each day, you’re spending your time assimilating each day, and you are spending time regenerating each day.

And the don’t is simply just to go from one thing to another all the time, just continually distracted by the next thing, “Oh, I should be doing that. Oh, I should be doing that. Oh, I might do this instead,” and you never get to a fraction of what you could achieve otherwise.

In terms of synthesis, it really is about getting to a state of mind where you can pull all of the things which you’re exposed to into understanding, into knowledge, into something where you have insights that other people don’t. And that requires this going between the intense focus but also the breath, giving your mind the space in which it can piece together all of the different elements in order to build that understanding.

So, in my book, I describe some of the different ways in which we can get to the state of mind where insights happen, where we can synthesize the ideas, where can come up with insights. And I suppose the don’t on that thing is simply just to burrow down all the time and not give our mind the space which it needs to be able to do what humans are incredibly good at, uniquely good at, is to pull together, connect the dots, and make sense of the whole.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Ross, tell me, any final thoughts before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Ross Dawson
Simply that this is the foundational capability for success today, is this ability to deal well with information and create value with it. And I think that anybody, whether you’re a beginner, as it were, or an expert, everyone can get better on it. And I just believe that we can all and should be spending time trying to get better at our information capabilities because that’s what will drive our abilities to create what it is we want in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Ross Dawson
So, one of my very favorite quotes is from James Carse, and it is “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.” And it’s from his book Finite and Infinite Games, and that’s so many things. People are so much stuck in their boundaries, and so we need to play with the boundaries of our life and work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Ross Dawson
One of my favorite bits of research which studied normal people and then meditators, and they put on a metronome, and the metronome started ticking. And for normal people, the first tick, they had this strong brain response, and then, quickly, it went down and they just didn’t notice it anymore. The Zen meditators, the first tick, they noticed. The second tick, they noticed it, and they keep on noticing it. They are continually seeing the world afresh. They are not becoming habituated to it as almost all of us do. So, this shows that we can continue to see the world afresh even as it stays the same, or seems to stay the same.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Ross Dawson
One of my favorite books I’ve read recently is The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch, pointing to the infinite potential we have as the human race.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Ross Dawson
Favorite tool, well, just in terms of information access, Techmeme is just one way, one place where I can just quickly get on top of all of the important technology news of the day. So, just a quick, easy, and simple tool, and makes me informed in that area.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a habit?

Ross Dawson
The habit which I am developing more and more is when I feel like a break, is doing one of two things. One is picking up my guitar, and the other is rather than browsing through things, is turning to a book just to read for a few minutes, and then turn back.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they Kindle book highlight it and retweet it and such?

Ross Dawson
Simply that we have to believe that we can create a better future in order to be able to create it. And I think a lot of people are very negative today. There’s a lot of negative news reported, people getting some poor states of mind, but I think the first thing is we need to believe that a better future is possible. And it doesn’t matter whether we think that’s highly probable or not very probable at all, as long as we believe it is possible to create a better future, that gives us the foundation to say, “Well, what is it that I can do in order to be able to create that?”

So, I think that’s, in a way, the foundation of my work, and I think it’s a lot of what resonates with people is this starting with this potential, this belief that we can create something better to drive the action, which means that we can work towards that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Ross Dawson
For my work, in general, RossDawson.com but for the book, ThrivingOnOverload.com. There’s a wealth of resources there, there’s free parts of the book, the exercises, the introduction, there’s the overload course, there’s a podcast, there’s a whole set of resources. So, ThrivingOnOverload.com is a wonderful place for those people who want to go further on this journey.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?