This morning, as I was looking through my unplayed podcasts list, I realized I am (as I am sure many others are) living in a world where we are consuming so much "stuff". There is always a tendency to catch up on things. Some of my pending items to "catch up on":

• Unplayed podcasts: I subscribe to 8-9 podcasts of which 2-3 are daily and the rest are weekly. In the end, if I don't keep listening to these every day, they pile up and I have to "catch up on".
• Readability: I come across a lot of interesting articles and videos and links in general. I simply add them to Readability to read later. So there is the Readability list to "catch up on".
• RSS Reader: I subscribe to *many* RSS feeds, some of which are extremely high-volume (like some tech blogs). There is always a ton of feeds to "catch up on".
• Personal email: Bills, statements, friends pinging for meetups, etc. Personal inbox to "catch up on".
• Work email: Freaking nightmare. Email flows in faster than I can clean up, despite several filters I have set up on the server. Work inbox to "catch up on".
• DVR: We almost never watch anything on TV live (except sports). Anytime we see something interested to watch on the TV, it gets added to the DVR. So we end up having a DVR list to "catch up on".
• Movies and music: So many new movies and music is being released. A lot of these are worth the watch, but they end up going into a to do list to "catch up on" sometime.
• Books (audio or otherwise): Same as movies and music, so many good books to read. Goes to a list to "catch up on".
• Hobbies: Not really a catch up item, but with all the stuff to catch up on, there is no time left for hobbies. This includes side projects, travel, etc.

There is of course a tendency to declare bankruptcy on one or more of these things. I frequently mark my RSS feeds as read, or my delete my podcast queue, but that's only a temporary solution. Perhaps simplifying our digital lives by cutting out many of the above (newsletters, podcasts, feeds, notifications on the phone, etc.) would help.

I am going to give that a shot as I prepare for a simpler, more "offline" life. :-)