The low information diet is a concept used in Timothy Ferriss’s new book, The 4-Hour Workweek.

If you think about it, information is the bane of our lives. It pursues us everywhere, via billboards and Blackberrys, cell phones and laptops. Information never stops, it seeps into our brains, jams out all useful activity and crashes any tendency to creativity. Most of it is useless, irrelevant, biassed, deceitful, deceptive and damaging to our health.

The problem is, information makes us feel important, connected, in league with “where it’s at”. If we don’t get any, we’re sure to look inadequate at the XYZ Conference. We never stop to think that the XYZ Conference is just another vehicle for more useless information, as is that so-vital podcast, video hookup or blog post (present post excepted because of its essential nature).

Ferriss’s chapter with the same title as this post is the best eight-page sequence in his book. Alone it will change your life. If you’re a Techmeme groupie or a news junkie, read it and learn about “selective ignorance” and the trial one-week media fast.

Refuse to be mediated, concentrate on that personal task in hand. Only your work and activity is worthy of your attention. Everything else may be relevant to others, but will kill your effectiveness and utility if you indulge in it.

This is a very interesting book which makes some contribution to the goal of a more efficient future. Don’t be put off by Ferris’s extravagant CV, you don’t have to do all of that. Four hours of Ferris should be enough to transform your working week. Maybe even reduce it to 20 hours or so.

Is burning the midnight oil while pondering a big problem or studying for an important exam an effective way to sear knowledge into your brain? Despite the stereotype we often see of the dedicated scientist working long into the night to solve a particular equation, it is more likely that a good night’s sleep and a fresh start would be a more effective strategy.

Research indicates that the brain’s ability to refuse and fend off distracting influences decreases when we are tired. Normally, when we are involved in a task, our brains select to allow or disallow incoming information. Distracting information is disallowed. However as tiredness increases, this ability decreases and distraction can disrupt concentration.

Dutch researcher Harm Veling conducted experiments using words and memory tests. Subjects studied words that were strongly associated with each other, some similar words that served as distracting words and some neutral words that were not associated with the others at all. Suppressing the distractions was key to performing well on the test and performing the task quickly.

The brain’s ability to suppress distraction is adversely affected by tiredness. Subjects who were suffering mental fatigue did the least well on the tests as they were no longer able to suppress the distractions.

So the next time you are facing a difficult task requiring concentration, the best way to prepare is to rest up for it.

Brain Fends Off Distractions - Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research