Overload

Sometimes I feel like I used to be smarter.

It seems like I don't have the attention span any more to read an article that takes some thinking to understand.  I also have less patience for reading documentation to figure out how to use software.  Maybe I am spoiled -- user interfaces have become more intuitive so I'm used to being able to use unfamiliar software without much study.

I think another factor may be information overload.  There is so  much out there on the internet now.  I scroll through the postings on Facebook, and it already takes enough time to do that, I don't have time to also click on the links and read the articles or watch the videos.

Or not just information overload, but activity overload.  If I'm home, I have to prepare the food, wash the dishes, pay the bills, and do work for the activities I'm involved in.  That doesn't leave productive energy for reading nonfiction.  When I read, it's an escape from productivity, so I read fiction. 

The things I am supposed to be doing are not getting done.  I don't get my bills paid on time.

At my job, everyone is on overload. There may be something that needs to be processed by three people in succession.  What each person needs to do is brief, so a person should be able to have it done the same day it comes in.  But everyone has a backlog.  So what should be done in one day takes two weeks.  And when three people take two weeks, that means the whole thing takes six weeks.  Our slow response time sometimes causes negative consequences.

So in both my job and my personal life, this overload just is not working.  And yet, it's not so simple to find a way out of it.