Tell HN: 500 unread mails, 2K unread articles, 5K unread posts – I am drowning

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/2F3DZv3

And that's on top of the hundreds of tweets that I also "bookmark" in order to check later, on top of a couple of client projects I am currently working on, on top of my relationship that often feels neglected and on top of my life as an individual (= my friends, my family, books I want to read, movies I want to watch, music I want to listen to, places I want to go to, etc etc). But to add some more context: I am a freelance developer (web, mostly), one of my clients is a company that has hired me to do data analytics for them in a field that's quite new (and so there's a lot of studying (about statistics) and research (about the field) from my side) and I really, really, like exploring, studying and learning new things in many areas. So, over the years, I've been collecting pieces of knowledge or other general information that I found interesting. And now, I find myself just before the start of a new year (= reflectioning and resolutioning) and just before a commitment that will require some very effective time management for the next few months, thinking that I just can't do it. Now, to "do it" means to take action over all of these ~7.5K items. With very simple mathematics, if each item requires an action of ~5' each (this number is quite off but I am using it just to make more sense), I need something like ~26 days of doing nothing else other than "actioning" on these items (or ~52 days if I split the day in two halves, etc etc). Not very possible. And here I am, asking for thoughts, opinions, advice. How do I do it? I could just "-f delete -all" in my inbox, pocket and bookmarks folder but I just "can't". Have any of you been in any similar positions? How did you deal with it? Is it some sort of standard "digital hoarding" situation? Is there something deeper? Should I seek for professional help, maybe?