ChatGPT and the Age of Overwhelm

ChatGPT and the Age of Overwhelm

Every day we’re inundated with content.

Does the thought of opening your inbox, logging onto LinkedIn, Instagram etc overwhelm you?

We’re continually being bombarded by information, stories, videos, etc.

The level (and relatedly choices) we’re exposed to is at record high levels and is about to get much, much worse.

And yes, I get the irony of my writing a post about content overwhelm.

But it’s still early days now and I promise my intention is to bring light to the issue, so we can in turn manage it.

ChatGP3 (soon to be 4) and a host of other AI-based tools are in their infancy.

Users are still slowly figuring out how they work.

Once Microsoft, Google, and other investors spend the intended billions on top of what’s already been spent, the content we can choose from will seem and likely will be endless.

Forgery v. the Real Mona Lisa?

Though AI can’t yet write like I do (then again, there are days that even I can’t write like me). the bigger issue is what happens when it can write enough like you, me, and everybody else.

We’ll all be content creators of a sort, all it will take is the ability to ask the right questions and filter out the best answers.

While not necessarily a bad thing, it’s unquestionably overwhelming.

It then becomes a matter of how to manage these endless inputs into our already maxed-out personal hard drives.

In our overly marketed, clickbait world, content curation will be the name of the game as the proliferation of information grows exponentially.

It’ll require far more intentional where you place your attention.

What do you REALLY need to know?

And, who can you trust to provide it?

Even with that, you’ll still need to manage your time or risk getting swallowed up in the black hole of information that may keep you feeling overwhelmed.

Time remains our greatest commodity.

And often FOMO can be its greatest enemy... this includes information.

I say this as someone who loves learning and has been known to waste hours on finding out about things that have little bearing on my life.

I will never stop being curious, but I’ve learned to place limits on it.

Only a few minutes on FB and Instagram, with more time on LinkedIn, but even there, I’ve started cutting back.

It’s important to have a plan.

Know what you need to know and how much time you’re willing to spend on the things you don’t.

ChatGPT and AI are here, they’ve been around for a long time quietly changing our lives.

But things are about to get very loud as their usability improves and becomes more ubiquitous.

This means that the most cognitively agile and resilient will flourish and those who let it manage us, will be even more overwhelmed.

It’s time to decide how you want to approach the future of your work and life…before technology chooses for you.

Three Simple Steps for Managing Content Overwhelm

1.???Be Intentional – what outcome(s) are you trying to achieve and what do you REALLY need to know? Relatedly, what does success look like in its most minimal form? The just “one more thing” syndrome can be destructive…it’s important to get comfortable with good enough in those instances when good enough is, in fact, good enough.

2.???Set Limits – How much time do you really want to spend? Think Parkinson’s Law,” "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Know your limits

3.???Leverage the Tech – somewhat counterintuitively you can use the very source of your overwhelm to manage. If there’s something you want to know, skip the many websites and articles and just ask ChatGPT, who has read many of them already.

As the speed of change only increases, we need to consider how to leverage it to our advantage so that it adds, does not detracts and in the end serves to augment, not diminish what is uniquely, humanly you.