The Intranet Journal has an article from Paul Chin on Dealing with Information Overload.
Don't curse an intranet for having an abundance of information. As a CMS, that's the system's job: To manage information. But you have your part in this too. Content is placed into an intranet to suit as wide an audience as possible — it's up to you to decide what's applicable to you and not to feel the need to become a sponge. If you do, you're going to end up changing the "M" in CMS from "management" to "migraine."
He's got some interesting comments about the effect of having all this information available, primarily it looks like attention deficit disorder. Chin's discussion suggests that the content management systems' responsibility is primarily to manage and provide the content. It is the responsibility of the users to manage their time (and attention) with respect to the content. While I agree with this, there is also some need for for the tools we use to help us work the right way.
[found via Column Two]