January 31, 2015

Kill My Backlog

My personal theme for the past year or so has been to do less backlogging and more doing. I've been saving bookmarks and books and games and ideas, pretty much hoarding and obsessing over lists of things to read/play/write/make/do some day when I get around to it, since my early college days.

When Google Reader announced its closing a couple of years back, I was dismayed to find I had about 250 unread articles "saved for later." That was my first clue. Since then I've been more mindful of all the stuff that I tuck away for some other day, but I still tend to find myself spending as much time curating my lists (which can be helpful, as outdated and irrelevant as some items are) as I do consuming them.

The name for this post comes from a subreddit that started up around the same time, when a Steam collector's similar realization led him on a crusade to at least try all of the games in his account. It might be the sunk cost fallacy, but it's a noble effort. My own experience has been more like this:
Doghouse Diaries: How To Feel Mad
The thought of missing out on something interesting has made me a digital hoarder, but ironically the volume of stuff I already have backlogged probably limits what I discover.

Since I've been on a productivity kick lately, and of course blogging is one of the things I always want to work on, I'm going to draw this out into a little series about the kinds of stuff I've collected and the tools and habits I've been finding helpful in getting more done.