Currently I am using Readwise as incremental reading, more or less.

I have a lot of highlights and I want to make sure that my system of reading does not create an insurmountable backlog, and that it stays manageable over time.

Backlog Statuses

[[2021-03-31]]

2158 highlights

Assuming 5 min to process each highlight (I think this is pretty safe).

~180 hours = 22.5 eight hour workdays = ~ 1 month of full time work

(not that it’s feasible to do eight hours of highlight processing in a day, it is kind of taxing work)

Using the Life Calculator, I can see how long it will take to get through this backlog for these scenarios, assuming 1 hour of reviewing a day

• Review everday: ~0.5 years

• Review business days: ~0.7 years

• Review unscheduled frequently: ~1.7 years

I think business days is probably the best estimate.

This is mostly my initial backlog, and I think I’ll get through these quicker and hopefully my future backlog will remain shorter as I will be more precise and careful with what I highlight. Though likely the average processing time per highlight will go up since the highlights I do make will need more thought (though I expect it to still stay around 5 min per highlight).

Also, it’s actually hard to calculate the true backlog since I can only see total highlights. I might have to start discarding as I process to get a more accurate number.