I have about 500 physical books right now ranging from learning Chinese to advanced c++ to quantitative finance to Seeet Chi.<p>My wife hates it. I buy books because I want to. I hope to read them. Someday I will, I know this. I read a lot already but the implementing what I have read and practicing takes time away from reading new subject matter. Example learning Chinese..it’s been 3 years and I still practice daily. Quant stuff.. I’ve been implementing and refining my code but this all takes time away from th piles of books I have accumulated.
How about having too many tabs that you never get around to closing?<p>Articles on Instapaper and the like that you never get around to reading?<p>Side projects that you never finish?
> The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.<p>Nassim Taleb in "The Black Swan" on the value of unread books.
Any suggestions for solving or improving on this?<p>I used to have a humble bundle subscription and every month I got like 5 games on Steam, and played around 2 per year. My solution for this one was to unsubscribe. Yes, I still see it every now and then and think "Oh would be cool to play this" but then I remind myself that I would have no time for it.<p>Another case is started projects or just ideas that never get realized. But no solution for this. I know I should "just start" and finish small increments etc, but it doesn't seem to be enough to motivate me, even though I think my ideas would make for some great useful apps/scripts.<p>What suggestions does HN have?
Toudoku (盗読): the habit of reading free scans of expensive books you never intend to buy.<p>Caution: just made that word up; don't spring it cold turkey on your Japanese friends.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of dullness, I shall fear no boredom, for my books are with me. My piles of books, they comfort me. I prepared a bookshelf in the presence of tedium. I anointed my PS4 with purchases on sale, my backlogs runneth over.
The value of a library is mostly in the books you haven't read... yet. Umberto Eco famously had a lot to say on this topic.<p>Nasim Taleb coined the wholly unnecessary word "antilibrary" to describe this, when really, it is the library containing only fully-digested books that is the degenerate case.
Libraries are pretty great. Costs very little and you have some time pressure to get it done before having to return it. Most books don't get read more than once anyway, so it's a pretty nice money saver too.<p>"What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they’re trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?"
– Jerry Seinfeld<p>Although I totally get that different books are worth and important to different people to be had around as your own.
I now know that I suffer from electronic components tsundoku.<p>I buy various elements on AliExpress (RF emitters or detectors, nodemcu, wifi dongles,...) with the hope of using them ond day.<p>So far I used maybe 10% of what I accumulated and decided to stop buyi... oh look, a new wifi switch I could reflash!
Why would you buy a book you don't intend to read? Is it kind of like buying home decorations? I mean I know how my habits work, I go to a bookstore, browse books, start reading wait to see if the story catches or doesn't, buy it or keep looking. Once I've got the hook on that story I can't shelve it without finishing it. I don't understand how you could not. Maybe people buy the books with a different intention?
I have a stack of chess books that's ever growing.<p>My one in one out strategy fell apart because the British Chess Championship is in town with the attendant giant book sale.<p>No more this week though.
For those looking for the actual characters:<p>積読 [<a href="http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C0%D1%C6%C9" rel="nofollow">http://d.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/%C0%D1%C6%C9</a>]
I am collecting domain names. Each new idea must came along with domain bought. But each of them become expired in a year and my collection is not very big.