Treat Your To-read Pile Like a River

Treat your to-read pile like a river | Oliver Burkeman

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). After all, you presumably don’t feel overwhelmed by all the unread books in the British Library – and not because there aren’t an overwhelming number of them, but because it never occurred to you that it might be your job to get through them all.

I feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that I need to read. It was the same reason why I tried current. I did not like the fact that it took the control away from me, but I liked the concept of it.

This provides the same mental model - something that flows and you just pick what interests you. I have a similar setup on my website - between garden and stream.

Some things feel obvious after you read them. This feels like one of those things.