BBC News - Pretty pictures: Can images stop data overload?
Your laptop is open on the desk next to you with another set of figures you need - meanwhile you're frantically tabbing through different documents on the main screen.
You have a meeting in 20 minutes and you suddenly feel as if you're swimming in a sea of impenetrable data, and you're starting to sink.
Welcome to the 21st century workplace, and "data overload".
Under siege You're not alone.
Dr Lynda Shaw is a neuroscience and psychology lecturer at Brunel University in the west of London.
"I've been interviewing a lot of senior business people lately, and they're actually hiding... because they're frightened they're going to be asked questions they can't answer, so they're delaying making really quite important decisions," she says.
"When we're inundated with emails, Twitter, Facebook, social media, search engines like Google, it's as if we're expected to know more than we actually do, and we can't retain that level of information, that bombardment.
"When we feel overwhelmed we start to delay making decisions."