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From The Personal MBA's List of the 99 Best Business Books...

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Review: 'Bit Literacy' by Mark Hurst

Information overload is stressful and exhausting. If your e-mail inbox is overflowing, your desktop is full of random documents, and using your computer is a daily exercise in stress and frustration, you need to read Bit Literacy.

There's a reason most of us have issues with using technology effectively: we've learned to use our computers in an ad-hoc way, instead of thinking about the longer-term implications of our default digital organization strategy. In this book, Mark Hurst shows you how to improve your life by adopting a few simple practices to manage your digital information.

The core premise of Bit Literacy is that digital information is “psychologically heavy” – when you see that your inbox has 3000 messages in it or you notice that your desktop is out of control, it weighs you down in a very real way. The solution, according to Hurst, is to “let the bits go” by using a few simple and intuitive systems to organize your data. When your bits are finally under control, you'll literally feel the difference.

A great deal of the information contained in Bit Literacy pertains to e-mail, since it's the most commonly overused/misused tool. After you adopt Hurst's methods, you'll notice two things: (1) you'll only see information when you need to act on it, and (2) you'll be able to find your digital information immediately when you need it.

Hurst's opinionated, "do-it-this-way" approach is simple and straightforward, which means you're more likely to actually use and stick with his solutions. Even advanced computer users will pick up something useful from this book.

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Buy 'Bit Literacy' by Mark Hurst

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