The bookmark deluge

Disclaimer: this post contains more questions than answers.

I’m currently thinking about changing careers (again). After a year in marketing, a year and half in broadcasting, and 5+ years in UX, I felt the urge to look for something else.

So I read posts, watch videos, and sometimes testing the waters of some online courses in various fields. Then I read more posts, watch more videos, and getting a taste of more courses.

Sometimes I took the time to organize my notes, even record voice notes for myself.

Before long, I have a collection of bookmarks, saved posts, YouTube videos in my “Watch Later” playlist, podcast episodes, reels, TikToks, this article from this site, that post from that blog….

Holy smokes, this is more links than I have the time to go through them

I guess the term data deluge is not only concerning to companies and governments, but also individuals too. Without realizing, I have saved more posts than I can handle.

And I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in this. Moreover, it has been it’s own sub-niche under the Productivity category for some time now. Books, podcasts, and articles talk about building your second brain because it’s not a good storage system.

So I tried Notion, Anytype, Evernote, and basically anything available on app stores to build this second brain. At first, it’s a breeze. But not before long, it becomes bloated, full with informamtion more than the time to synthesize it, let alone putting them to action.

I personally think this experience like having a garden that’s constantly under the threat of parasites. Gathering information is only one piece of the puzzle, managing them is a whole different game.

And then there’s this constant thought:

How do I organize this properly? After that, how can I put it into action? If that produces more bookmarks, how will I handle it? After that, what…..? What’s beyond?

Maybe, the ability to dismiss, unsave, and ignoring things is more important than ever.