We are constantly surrounded by so much content from blogs, videos, podcasts to TV and photos; the list goes on. Our phones ping with notifications to tell us about a new social media post, email, or text; there is very little escape from information being pushed to us daily. How does one manage all of this content? There is such an influx of data; how do you choose what’s important and decide how to organize it for future reference? In my case, I can only handle the surplus in small doses. With my busy schedule of managing work, family, and graduate school, I select only the most critical pieces to dedicate my attention to. 

Daily News 

To start my day, the first piece of content I read is a news update email from the New York Times. There is one main article with bullet points for the remaining headlines. Once I’ve finished reading it, it gets deleted, and my inbox is a little less full.

Social Media Content 

The most embarrassing bit of content I enjoy is Facebook. I know it’s taboo these days with all of the negative news surrounding it, but maybe it’s because it was released when I was fresh out of college and ALL of my friends are there; I still enjoy Facebook. It helps me know what’s happening with my kid’s school actives and I love the funny posts, like Tosh.O or silly memes. It’s my tiny bit of entertainment throughout my day. I rarely save anything from Facebook, and if I do, it sits in cloud limbo forever.

On the other hand, I use Instagram for design inspiration. It’s easy to see what’s new in design and UI/UX by following Dribbble or various artists and designers. When I find an interesting post, it gets saved and organized to a category to reference later. Before starting a new project, I enjoy going through my saved items for ideas and tutorials. When I no longer care for the design or forget why I held it in the first place, it gets purged regularly. Maybe because I rely on my saved posts, I keep them well organized for future reference.

Personal Photos 

The last bit of significant content I consume is all of my photos. Before graduate school, I was much more diligent about keeping my photography well organized. I took the time to delete bad, blurry pictures and label my favorites. Then, they were posted to a shared Shutterfly website for my family abroad to see. Two times a year, I created photo books for my family to look back on memories of the year. Because these photos have significant meaning, they are backed up to an external hard drive and in the cloud via Shutterfly. All of my photos are together, and they are organized chronologically first by year, then by month.

Final Thoughts

Maybe because our world is remarkably fast-paced or because I have a short attention span, I prefer my content in small doses. It’s not until I’ve read an intriguing headline or seen a compelling visual that I spend more time with content. It’s only with valuable content that I take the time to organize and back it up so I may be able to use it for future reference.