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Strategies for managing information can vary from taking two-minute brain breaks to using a color-coded system to sort through your email or keep track of your calendar.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of talking to other people …”

The Internet is full of research, and you could spend the rest of your life trying to read it all. So don’t even try to. Instead, organize and delete information as it comes in rather than letting it pile up, said Deborah Barreau, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science who studies personal information management.

She filters information by ignoring some of the more popular sources and focusing her time on trusted periodicals that publish up-to-date findings. She also keeps a bibliography database of articles she might want to refer back to at some point so they’re easy to find in the future.

Before she moves from collecting information to synthesizing it, she talks over her findings with colleagues to help identify gaps.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of talking to other people about what they’ve read and run into. Sometimes that can give you an idea, ‘OK, I’ve got enough,’” she said. “That goes back to relationships rather than what you find on the Internet.”

“The act of writing helps you retain something”

Ann Blair , a history professor at Harvard University and the author of “Too Much to Know,” relies on note-taking to filter the research coming her way.

She files those notes electronically and revisits them often, both to flush out what she no longer needs and to make sure the headings she filed them under still work for her.

“We take notes in order to focus our attention at the moment, slow down the mind and engrave it in the memory better,” she said. “The act of writing helps you retain something.”

She spent about six years researching her book, which included visiting European libraries to examine 16th-century reference books and old Latin manuscripts, before writing it over the next four years. It’s hard, she said, to know when to stop collecting information, whether it be for a sermon, an article or a book.

So when should you stop researching and start interpreting?

When you start to notice recurring themes and recurring authors, she said. “In taking that step, you know there is more out there that you’re not going to access, but there’s a curve of diminishing returns.”

“Be the master of your interruptions”

Multitasking is essentially the act of interrupting one activity with another, ensuring that both take longer to accomplish, said Joanne Cantor, the outreach director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Communication Research and author of “Conquer CyberOverload.”

So instead of multitasking, she said, “be the master of your interruptions” by turning off gadgets and email notifiers while you work.

When your mind gets foggy, take a break, but don’t jump onto Facebook or your BlackBerry, she said. Sometimes, just two minutes of quiet reflection allow the brain to sort out whatever material you’ve been looking at.

“You don’t have to hide in a cave, but give yourself a good patch of time where nothing new is coming in,” Cantor said. “Your brain is going to be processing all this stuff that didn’t make sense.”

“Keep your connection to the Holy One”

Years ago the Rev. Wilson Gunn, the general presbyter at the National Capital Presbytery, took a speed-reading course. It has been invaluable in enabling him to digest quickly large amounts of information, including news articles and emails, he said.

And if he needs quiet time to finish a project, he’s not shy about shutting the door and hunkering down. He also recommends renewing one’s spirit regularly by pursuing outside interests. For Gunn, who oversees 108 churches in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland, those include sailing and playing the string bass.

“In the midst of all the flow of minutiae and how to filter it out, it’s really important you keep your connection to the Holy One in some sustained spiritual way,” he said.

“The use of technology … requires a certain degree of self-control”

As the coordinator of middle governing body relations for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Rev. Jill Hudson travels quite a bit, facilitating connections among the local, regional and national organizations within the church. When she’s on the road, her administrative assistant accesses her email to keep messages from piling up.

“If there are simple questions she can answer, she does so and copies me,” Hudson said in an email. “That has helped tremendously.”