In the past several years, as I became more and more cognizant of the effects of Information Overload on an individual, I found myself better able to separate work from the rest of my life and not fret, for example, about how much e-mail might be accumulating while I am doing something else.

As a result, I had little concern that I would constantly be checking e-mail or conferring with colleagues.  Instead, I decided to use the ubiquitous online access to enhance the trip experience, and prove to myself that it was possible to consume information in moderation and not let it distract me from the sights and sounds of my journey.

The first leg of the drive, from Stuttgart to Maastricht, took us past Karlsruhe, Speyer (Spira, incidentally, is the Latin word for Speyer), Mannheim, Koblenz, and Aachen, among other cities, and it was fun to look up information about the places we were passing.  While my friend and colleague Christian Stampfer was driving, I was also able to read about our first destination, Maastricht, and begin to plan what we would do there.

Checking the weather was another activity best done online because the weather was constantly changing (to say the least) and, in the end, while we were very lucky with far less rain than had been forecast,

There were countless decisions, such as where to eat and what to see and do in various towns along the way [for example, we stopped in Aachen to see the Dom on the way to Köln and I wanted to drive across the Jackfrostbrug (Jack Frost Bridge) in Arnhem that was memorialized in the book and film A Bridge Too Far.]  Having the Internet at hand made it far easier to plan the day and make well-informed itinerary changes on the fly.

While I am a recovering news junkie, there were several major events unfolding in the world during the trip (riots in London, downgrading of the U.S. debt rating, just to name two) and I wanted to at least have a semblance of reassurance that the world-at-large was still out there.  A combination of a quick glance at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times iPad apps plus the “Tagesschau in 100 Sekunden” (a 100-second recap of top news by Germany’s leading television news program) gave me all the news I needed in just a few minutes.

In addition, while I didn’t want to overload anyone with too many details of my trip, I did want to share a few choice photos with friends and family and I used a combination of e-mail and Facebook to do so.

Admittedly, there were a few work-related phone calls and e-mail messages that I did have to attend to but those were few and far between and didn’t leave me craving for more of the same.  I was able to do what I had to and then return to ignoring work, e-mail, and the Web – and focus on my primary objective, namely discovering new places and things to do and see.

 – Jonathan Spira is the author of Overload! How Too Much Information Is Hazardous To Your Organization

RELATED ARTICLES

• Vienna: Summer and Winter

Pages: 1 2