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| courtesy of Tim on Flickr |
Searching
Ah searching. It's always the part that trips people up when you're on the quest for information. It's also the part that can easily overwhelm even the hardiest Internet user.
Even a simple search in Google can turn out to be not so...well...simple. There's so much information available through the web that where do you even begin to find what you need? It feels like finding a needle in a haystack.
Searching is a huge portion of the information strategy pie and there are three important aspects of searching to remember (and these will seem like common sense but we always forget them):
- Know what to search
- Know where to search
- Organize your information as you search
Know where to search
Okay, so we know what we want to search. And we know our personal process for learning. Now, it's time to pinpoint where you can search for resources.
Google or any other search engine is your best friend in this case and there are many different kinds of resources out there. To name a few:
- Books and eBooks
- Blogs
- Podcasts
- Wikis
- Ezines
- Magazines
- YouTube
- Bloglovin
and the list goes on and on. Some of the resources I named are both a resource and a tool for finding other resources. So how do you choose which one to go with?
Knowing how you learn will be your most effective method for choosing. If you like visual, maybe Pinterest or Instagram would be the best resource for you. If you like audio, then YouTube or podcasts would be a good resource.
You've got all these choices on the web but how can you possibly look at every one of them?
My advice: start with just one resource and then branch out
When you look for resources, I recommend starting with one and then branching out to find others. This will help you avoid complete information overload.
If you want to start redesigning your life or building a hobby, I recommend looking at blogs because they contain so many different kinds of information at once. One blog may have posts, a podcast, and a YouTube channel (I know of several blogs with all these things).
For example, I follow the blog Tranquility du Jour, which I've mentioned and reviewed before on this blog. But the reason I mention it the most is because it is THE blog for me. Almost every other book, blog, author, or podcast I now follow was something that I learned about through Tranquility du Jour.
If there's one thing I've found, it's how small the Internet really is once you start exploring it. Everything is connected and one resource can lead to a hundred others.
Question: What one resource have you found that helped you to find others?
As always, thank you for reading :)
Melissa
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