Information is everything. The difference between a high performance multi-billion dollar hedge fund and an investment fund that just collapsed and lost everything is information. Unfortunately we all suffer from an information overload.

The keyphrase for today is — “Actionable Data.”

The American Heritage Dictionary defines actionable as — “Relating to or being information that allows a decision to be made or action to be taken.”

Consider all of the information that you take in on a given day. Friends, news, gossip, today’s revenue, web site stats, and so on. What information matters and what does not?

Here is a challenge/expirement for you to try out. Focus on the information that is actionable. Ignore everything that has no relevence to your business (ok, if you are married that might not work out very well!)

Next filter out unimportant sources. If there is a source that has routinely given you good information, keep watching it. If it is a blog that has never given you a single piece of actionable information, delete it from your RSS subscriptions. If watching CNBC never helped you make more money, turn it off.

Now when you see something that you can take action on — do it. Don’t wait. Specifically, things you can do right now to benefit your web sites. Be moderate. This doesn’t mean start a new business on every single idea. However, it could mean quickly launching a web site for a hot new niche market.

Try that out for a day and let me know the results.