QuickTake: Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket

Ok, so I am going to try something new. I'm going to call these "QuickTakes" after what they are and the first digital camera I remember seeing, completely blowing my young mind. I basically want to share good things that I’ve read and add a little colour commentary to them:

Oliver Burkeman @ oliverburkeman.com:

Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that you, like me, have a large pile (or digital equivalent) of books or articles you've been meaning to get around to reading…

Yes, this rings true for me.

…isn't filter failure. It's filter success. In a world of effectively infinite information, the better you get at sifting the wheat from the chaff, the more you end up crushed beneath a never-ending avalanche of wheat.

Are you in my house, Mr Burkeman?

…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)

Except if you're pulling this metaphorical "wheat" out of the metaphorical "river", the next logical metaphorical step is to bake bread. Input demands output. Even if it isn't necessarily "creative" or "productive," the input should lead to something fulfilling, useful, or at the very least a spark of inspiration to do the next thing, whatever that may be.