Swimming or Drowning in the Information Stream

Anyone else struggle with trying to keep up with e-mail, RSS feeds, e-mail groups, and social media sites? (And now I want to add blogging to the list, am I crazy?) I saw a quote the other day on The Rapid E-Learning Blog, titled, "How to Navigate Social Media (and Avoid Information Overload)" that really hit home...

No one goes to a library and complains that there are too many books. That wouldn’t make sense. You want as many books as possible in the library. You just don’t want them all at the same time.

I think the trick to keeping up is to quit trying. This quote reminded me that the important part to having so much information is learning to find what you need, when you need it. That's the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how. So far, I've been using Google Reader to help manage my RSS feeds, using filters and rules in my e-mails to filter out the e-mail I don't need to read, and trying not to worry so much about missing something and trust that the information I need will be there when I need it. So I need to learn to swim in the information steam and not drown in it.

Do you have any strategies that work for you?