I think that it is one of those things that comes hand in hand with most geeky pursuits, whether that be reading books, watching movies, playing video games etc.
I too have the BACKLOG…
Mine particularly refers to video games.
I was a collector of video games since I could afford my own games and systems, and in 2016 I was deeply trapped in the whole trophy hunting culture. Fast forward a little to 2018 and after having taken a break from gaming almost entirely for the previous year and discovered minimalism. Wanting to declutter but also not wanting to miss out on the gaming experiences that I had paid hard-earned money for I came up with a plan to tackle the mountain of games that I had accumulated.
My first step was to realise that I was holding on to games that I had already completed, knowing that I so rarely replay games once I’ve finished them, I felt comfortable decluttering them. I also had a number of older systems and games to go with them, they took up quite a lot of space, space that I wanted back. That left me with the PS4, 3DS, switch and the games I had collected for them.
The next step I took was to make a spreadsheet to catalog the games I owned. The first spreadsheet I made listed over 200 games. I utilised howlongtobeat.com to get an idea of the length of each of the games on the list. Using a random number generator to pick a game for me, I decided that I would at the very least try every game, with the caveat that if I wasn’t enjoying it I would drop it, remove it from the backlog and if it was a physical copy, sell it, if digital, uninstall it.
I also set a goal that I would initially be able to buy one new game for every 10 games removed from the backlog. To incentivise myself further I also started another spreadsheet logging my completed games. This tactic worked fabulously, and my current backlog now stands at 16 games. I have however developed another list, the wish list, which has grown to almost 60 games currently. This is the list of games from which I can buy new games from.
My goal now is to get my backlog down to 5 games and to maintain at that number and no more. Once I am at my five games, this will be maintained on a one-in-one-out basis, again utilising a random number generator to decide which game I am playing at a time.
I will log every week in this blog what games I have played the previous week and whether or not they got dropped or not. I will start reviewing games going forward and look forward to reaching my backlog goal and sharing that experience with you.
