To return to information overload: this means treating your “to read” pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it).
Coming at life this way definitely entails tough choices. But it’s liberating, too, as you slowly begin to grasp that you never had any other option. There’s no point beating yourself up for failing to clear a backlog (of unread books, undone tasks, unrealized dreams) that it was always inherently unfeasible to clear in the first place.
I’ve come around to this mindset generally in the past 6 months. I’ve pretty much always had this mindset when it comes to books, but tried to be a completionist when it comes to my digital life (RSS feeds, social media, etc).
The shift happened when I started using FeedLand, as Dave Winer calls the main stream the “River” and you view it at a moment in time instead of an inbox with unreads. No stress with missing something… when you want to dip into the river and wade around you can, but things float by when you aren’t looking and that is okay.
