I'm sure like me you are inundated with materials to read---financial reading, business reading, IT systems reading, etc.  I complicate it but getting too many content emails and too many magazines.  Granted, both the ridiculous number of emails and magazines are all free, the magazines come from frequent flyer points, but all they seem to do is pile up.  They either pile up in my inbox or in my home office----much to my wife's displeasure.

I am stricken with that age-old disease "I will get to it someday" expectation.  That disease is complicated by the "missing something" disease.  I always feel like if I don't keep that reading material and read it "someday" I will miss an important article or important fact.

I tried the........"if I do not read it within a month of publication I throw it away" rule.......but somehow the "missing something" disease overtook the "month rule" a long time ago.  Funny how the disease took over the rule.

I am sure the experts would simply say that if you do not read the materials within a few days (or earlier) you should throw it away.  But does that work????

David A. Fogel, CPA                                                                                                                                                                                           Coordinating Committee for the MIT Sloan CFO Summit

Principal, Swifton CFOs
Email: dfogel@swiftoncfos.com Twitter: @swifton