I believe in better living through technology. Machines make our lives better. If it wasn’t for the internet you wouldn’t be reading this blog. You’d just be staring at a monitor with nothing on it like a goddam idiot. If it wasn’t for advances in medical technology you’d probably be dead too. Imagine being dead and not being able to read my blog. That’s your life without technology. So you should be grateful for it.

I know I am. Because I’ve inadvertently let it take over my entire life.

Case in point, I noticed that I was always starting books and never finishing them. Or someone would recommend a great book to me and I’d forget about it. That right there is a problem that needs fixing. How can you keep track of everything you’re reading, and maintain an ever-growing backlog of recommendations from other people? Simple: the internet.

I use Goodreads to manage my life in books. I have books categorised into three sections: TO READ, CURRENTLY READING, and READ. It’s so simple it’s stupid. And it’s addictive. Start a new book? Add it to Currently Reading. Got a recommendation? Add it to To Read.

The only problem is that dreaded backlog. You can check out my To Read shelf here, and there’s probably two things you’ll notice.

  1. The list is super long. 252 books long. According to my Read shelf, that’s like twice as many books as I’ve ever read (I’m counting all the books I’ve read ‘offline’ too). So yeah, the end is not in sight. (But should it be, really?)
  2. Some of the books were added to ‘To Read’ years ago. The earliest was added way back in 2012. That’s a bigger issue. It takes longer to read books than to add them to my collection, so the backlog is only growing larger. But maybe that’s fine too. (As long as I don’t mind behind possibly 4/5 years behind the times).

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But anyway, I now consider my book life forever sorted. As long Goodreads stays active (please don’t introduce subscriptions please don’t introduce subscriptions) I’ll forever have another book to read. And that’s great.

Having considered this an unequivocal success, I realised that many other things in my life could be fixed in the same way. And that’s where Trello comes in.

Trello is an online project management tool that essentially mimics a kanban board. In other words, you put tasks into columns representing different stages of a production process. In its simplest form, this can be: TO DO, DOING, DONE. You might have various rules about how you prioritise TO DO, or how many things can be in DOING at any time – but that’s all extras. This is all about getting really frickin’ organised.

Goodreads is essentially the same system, but dressed up with fancy things like ‘shelves.’ And that fanciness isn’t really necessary. Case in point: Television.

With TV, there’s always stuff you wanna watch. But there’s usually more to watch than you can handle. BOOM, make a trello board: TO WATCH, WATCHING, WATCHED. Well, in real life mine is actually a hell of a lot more complicated…

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Lemme talk you through it. To Watch and Watching are pretty self-explanatory. I try to keep Watching as slim as possible, or it gets messy. But y’know, you might be watching a particular show with someone, which means going at a different pace. So right now I’ve got a couple in there. Watched 2016 Watched <2016 are just my way of going back over what I’ve actually completed. It helps me feel good about myself and pouring so much time and effort into this. Look, I’ve got results! Blocked is interesting, that’s my column for when I’m waiting on shows to make a new season, or get onto Netflix or something. It’s a holding area before stuff goes over to To Watch.

Phew. Did ya get all that? And once you’ve done it for TV, doing it for video games is the logical next step.

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Though obviously you need a separate one for HANDHELD video games, right?

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It’s not just fun and games though, I’ve worked boring ol’ household chores into this mix too. Cycling through them in this way keeps everything nice and fresh (I reckon).

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It helps financially too. Here’s one I made for my ‘saving goals’ – things I want, where the next thing I save for is whatever is top of the Things column currently.

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BUT WAIT THERE IS EVEN MORE OF THIS NONSENSE.

Not every film ever is on Netflix. So I’m subscribed to LoveFiLM (possibly their only customer at this point), who supply me with a weekly physical DVD picked at random from a huge list I’ve put together.

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Yup, there’s a backlog there of 343 films. Imagine what I could accomplish if I didn’t watch them and did something useful instead.

OH DID SOMEONE SAY BACKLOG.

By far my worst backlog is on Steam. Here’s a sneak peek at my ‘unplayed’ category there.

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PAHAHA THIS IS ONLY GOING UP TO ‘C’ LOLS.

To get around this, I’ve had to make a sub-category of games I want to play next.

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(And don’t even get me STARTED on my Spotify backlog…)

OMG. FOOD?!

I get weekly delivery of SNACKS to the office from Graze, who randomly pick bits and pieces from me from an online list I’ve curated.

I get monthly boxes of MEALS to cook at home from SimplyCook. YUP, RANDOMLY SELECTED FROM A LIST WHY AM I SO ADDICTED TO DOING THIS TO MYSELF

I EVEN USE EVERNOTE TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I’LL BE WRITING IN THIS VERY BLOG. THE ONE YOU ARE READING WRITE NOW. IT’S BEEN IN MY BLOG BACKLOG FOR MONTHS AHAHAHHAAAHAHAA

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Guys this is all great and not at all a crazy thing to do.

I’m so organised and you’re just all jealous.

Good luck organising your life without meticulous over-planning lol.

I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVERRRR