Backlog Blues
Backlog is usually a good thing. In its usual connotation, backlog are orders that are yet to be filled. They mean revenue in the future. More is better.
But as this great post outlines, backlog in our personal communications is a really bad thing.
We all face unanswered emails, voice mails, IMs, text messages, unread feeds, unwatched tivo’d TV shows, and unread books and magazines.
I am going to take some advice from the person who wrote this post.
As
of now, my fancy-pants, community-generated, emergent-behavior
data-sorting heuristic is: a calendar. If I haven’t gotten to something
in a week, it dies. Stick that in your attention economy and smoke it.
I’m re-booting. Feed list: empty. In-box: empty.
Sorry if I haven’t returned an email or a phone call in the past week. If it’s gone that long, there is a really good chance I’ll never get to it. Send it again please.