"How To" Advice: When There is Too Much Of It.

Headlines that offer to advice on how to do something to make your life better are very catchy.

• 10 Ways To Monetize Your Social Network
• How to Use Customer Insight to Improve Your ROI
• Smart Tips on Reducing Clutter in Your Home or Office
• 4 Mistakes You Should Never Make In Your Marketing Campaign.

These are just a few examples that came up with off the top of my head. But the list is potentially infinite. It seems like everywhere you go, people are offering advice. Sometimes all these lists get overwhelming.

Don't get me wrong. I like advice. I like to give advice and consider the helpful information of other people. I'm all in favor of people making efforts to improve and do better.

Advice is an attention getter. It implies a promise to help make our lives better. And this is what causes us to immediately respond.

It makes us feel good when we've read through the information. But do we ever really follow through and implement a new plan of action based on this new knowledge?

If the advice was something that we actually searched for, then I would say yes. But if the advice was something that we stumbled upon, it's easy to just leave it on the back burner, even though it offered helpful insight. It becomes easier to collect information than it is to implement it.

I've been through this many times before. I feel guilty when I don't take action to change something or move to the next level.

This is a perpetual cycle for a lot of people. The best way to address it is to really make a commitment to continuously evolve ourselves and our work. We can make the choice to be one of those people who reads a lot and overly indulges in the intellectual aspect of it. Or we can make the choice to make real changes happen. 

Just as metatags help in web development, metacognition is something we can use to manage the information we come across on a day to day basis. Metacognition involves having thoughts about thoughts.

• So the first thing to do when we find information that we plan to use is organize it. Create folders in your bookmarks list and organize all the links that you plan to revisit. If its a loose piece of paper, punch holes in it and save it in a binder. If you are reading a book, underline what is most relevant to you. And even take steps to type up an actual workable list for yourself that you will revisit as many times as needed.

• Then instead of trying to tackle the entire list, ask yourself which piece of information is most directly relevant to an issue that you are trying to solve in your life. It's usually best to go with your first instincts as opposed to your rationalized thoughts. 

• Most importantly, commit this information to paper and stick it on a corkboard or tape it somewhere so that you won't forget about it. Try to mentally see how this piece of information applies to you or your project. And again, commit this to paper so that you will remember to actually implement this new piece of information.

Taking these steps may seem really cumbersome. After all, it is about breaking the cycle of the idea junkie of just collecting information and neglecting to take action. In the end,  this investment of time is worth it if you want bona fide results and bigger rewards.