Today, at this moment, every activity I undertake is outlined via a myriad of Trello boards.

Ideas I have for blog posts.

Further fleshed out article ideas and outlines.

The odd product idea.

Marketing directions.

And the list goes on.

At this point in time, these are my backlog. Maybe it was a spark of genius that hit me on the way home from the hardware store or maybe I was at the park and the light looked funny.

Whatever it was, they were inspirations to make things happen.

But as the list grew longer with all my blog post ideas, all I’d do is look at them, trying to sift through what is useful and what isn’t.

The same happens in software, you have this monster backlog built up over years from a customer and internal requests until all that is looking at you is noise.

So I purged the backlog, I selected everything and turfed it all. Starting at ground zero without a safety net and refilling the backlog until one day soon… I’ll need to purge it again.

We shouldn’t be afraid to do this in software either, we don’t need to drag along those requests from years ago that now sit in our ticketing system staring back at us, daring us to make something happen when we don’t really want to.

Purge the Backlog and be Free!

Want more? Check out my book Code Your Way Up – available as an eBook or Paperback on Amazon (CAN and US).  I’m also the co-host of the Remotely Prepared podcast.

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