The Backlog

Ah, the backlog. Whenever I become overwhelmed with how much I have to do, I turn to you. I pick one thing and run with it.

I've heard a lot of women say "I'm such a good multi-tasker", but not so many guys. Guys don’t admit to doing a lot of different things badly at once. They excel at doing one thing pretty goddamn mediocre, one lame attempt at a time.

That’s why, to me, the essence of the backlog is inherently male. It’s all things you’ve been meaning to do but never started. When you excel at multi tasking, you’ve started a lot of different projects and just left them in a really poor state. That’s not a backlog, that’s just half ass-ing it.

Take last night: I told my girlfriend I’d clean up the loft so company could stay. I instead started on a mix CD for her, and spent the better part of 45 minutes playing with tracks, play order, etc…

So when I finish, she catches me with this dear in the headlight look. I know I haven’t gotten to cleaning. I know she knows because the loft still looks like broken egg shells on dirt. Obviously I haven’t cleaned it up. Yet she asks anyway.

I might have just as well said it’s on my backlog.

Which is to say, “I remembered to think about it while I was doing this other thing.”