In SCRUM and other agile methodologies you sometimes come across something called “backlog grooming”. That’s a regular meeting where you make your way through all the tasks that are in your backlog in order to clarify open questions, update information, or just remove them altogether if they are no longer relevant.
I think I need exactly that for my reading and podcast backlog. Given that I tend to be a completionist, removing not completed items from anything remotely looking like a list doesn’t come naturally to me. On the other hand, having those lists grow out of control is frustrating.
My read-later list this evening was somewhere around 50 articles and my podcast backlog hasn’t move below 30 in a long time. With both I’ve now decided to apply some gardening techniques every now and then but at the latest every Sunday when I also review my task list.
Just before writing this I’ve finally removed that one article about Rust life-times that has been lurking in there since Christmas. I won’t get into Rust anytime soon anyway 🙃
How are you handling your backlogs?
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