All right, I think we have time for one more question here. This one comes from Brian. Brian says, "I'm seeking a pragmatic strategy for keeping track of things to be read and a process for implementation. I have shelves of print books awaiting my good intentions as well as multiple folders containing hundreds of articles, papers, reports, and other digital content that I really want to read.

I could use help thinking about how to organize this. Any advice on an effective systematic method for capturing, storing, and prioritizing all the various things to be read that are in both digital and physical formats, not to mention many great conference talks that I receive via streaming services?" Brian, I'm exhausted just listening to your question here.

There is a near infinite amount of material that you could consume in the world, and it is more accessible than it's ever been. Well, that's good and bad. It's good because it means that if there's something you want to master, you actually have access to more information on whatever that is, and you probably would have had it any other time in history.

It's bad because you can drown. It's just too much stuff. So I think you are setting yourself up for frustration when you are trying to put in place these generic capture systems for any and all forms of interesting information. It will always be too much. You will always feel behind.

You have created a necessary stress generation machine. So what should you do instead? Well, here's my approach to the information consumption. So adjust as needed for your situation. When it comes to books, as is known, I have a number of books I try to read each month. For me, it's five, but that number could be different for you.

That creates a background rhythm of long form interaction with content. It also naturally engenders a diversity of different types of books. So you might have a longer book you're listening to when time gets short at the end of the month, sometimes I'll switch over to a shorter book and you end up with a real variety of different types of books.

All right. So that's how I handle books. If I'm reading five a month, I'm being exposed to a lot of ideas. That's enough. I don't think about all of the books I could read. I don't make lists of all the books I want to read. That'd be too frustrating.

I basically say, okay, I've finished one. What's next. Now let's think about things like articles. You know, as a computer scientist and a writer, I have to draw from articles. My, my computer science papers have to draw from existing academic papers, from writing a book chapter or a New Yorker piece, I'm probably going to have to pull from other types of papers, other types of things I've encountered.

There, my strategy has always been a project based pull approach, the content assumption, consumption. So project based. So P B P A C C that's, that's the really natural acronym I want to see. But what I mean by that is I allow a specific project that I'm committed to do and is already important.

Be the thing that pulls information into my world. I think it's a much more consistent way to do it. So if I am writing an article on trees in, I don't know, the rainforest or something like that, let that deadline and my need to read that article, push me to go out there and very quickly find a bunch of good articles on trees and read those things as quickly as possible and talk to some experts and learn a lot about trees that deadline, the commitment drew that into my life, as opposed to.

I'm just walking around one day and saying, I might like to read about trees. Let me put in a folder somewhere, trees as a topic and have some sort of elaborate system that bubbles that up. I want the projects to dictate it. I do the same with my academic work.

Hey, I like, I want to write a paper on this. I heard someone give a talk on it and I think I could do something here that motivates me to read the related work. That's how I read related work. When I'm trying to support a particular push towards a new result on my own.

This just hacks the motivational system in a very effective way. It's much easier to motivate, to grab and read things when you need it for something you're working on. You're going to cover a lot more material and to it, put some structure. This gives some structure to all the information out there.

The reason why I'm reading about trees is because I'm writing an article about trees. It gives you some clarity about what you should or shouldn't be writing about or reading. I should say. And then the final aspect of my system is serendipity. You know, how do you come across ideas you never, never would have known about, but might down the line generate new things.

Spark creativity, lead to a new article. How did you find out that trees are interesting in the first place? Have a limited number of interesting, high quality, diverse, incoming information channels that you expose yourself to on a regular basis. And let that be your entire serendipity engine. I live in Washington, DC, for example.

So I subscribe to the paper version of the Washington Post, a great serendipity machine. If you're on the internet, it's all algorithmically selected articles to press the buttons that you're already interested in. The paper doesn't have any algorithms. The things that are on the front page are on the front page.

And the things on the front page of the Metro section of the front page of the Metro section. It's not selected for you. It's not more of what you already like. And so I get exposed to a lot of interesting news locally, internationally. That's a good engine. Podcasts are another great engine.

You have a few podcasts you listen to that just cover interesting topics. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that do this with the podcast, 99% invisible, a lot of people do this with Planet Money. There's a lot of podcasts like this that cover a diversity of topics.

And just, okay, I have one or two of these things I listened to, and it exposes you to a lot of interesting, a lot of interesting ideas. I got a note from a lot of readers, for example, that I was referenced in a recent Planet Money episode, which I think just underscores that that is a incredibly high quality source of very important things you should know about.

All right. So that's my system. Have a set number of books you read, do that. You're good. For articles and other types of things, let specific projects that you're committed to be the thing that draws in what you're going to read into your life and when it comes to serendipity, fix some high quality serendipity channels and just expose yourself to those, do those things.

You'll be fine. There's no reason to have an elaborate system where you have a thousand books you one day want to read. There's no reason to have these folders of different types of article types that you're going to sort through and take one out once a week. You're never going to do any of that.

That system's going to frustrate you. So do something like my plan. And I think you're going to be, have all the information you need without feeling like you're always falling short.