You sit down after a long day. Kids are in bed, emails are done, and you’ve got maybe two hours before sleep takes you out. You open Steam. 237 games stare back at you. You scroll. And scroll. Then you open YouTube instead.
If you’re returning to any game after a long break, our guide to Path of Exile 2 Re-Entry Plan for Returning Players in 30-Minute Sessions covers the re-entry tactics that actually work.
Tracking your backlog is the planning half. The other half is what to do with a game that has been on the “started but paused” pile for six months. Our guide on how to restart a game you haven’t played in months covers the re-entry framework.
Sound familiar?
I’ve been there more times than I want to admit. My backlog at one point was so bad I started a Google Sheet to track everything. Color-coded tabs, estimated playtime per game, priority rankings. It lasted about three weeks before I stopped updating it. The spreadsheet became another thing on my to-do list, which is the exact opposite of what gaming should be.
And I know I’m not alone. Forum threads about backlog management get hundreds of replies. One guy on a Steam forum said choosing his next game takes him three to ten days. Another person on NeoGAF had 398 games in their library and couldn’t pick one. A commenter on Reset Era said he’s been using a spreadsheet since 2018 and still doesn’t feel like it’s working.
The backlog problem isn’t new. But the advice people give about it is pretty much always the same.
Every Backlog Article Says the Same Thing
I’ve read them all. Kotaku, Nintendo Life, GOG, Punished Backlog, MakeUseOf. They all land on some version of:
“Write it all down.” “Play shorter games first.” “Stop buying new games.” “Set a realistic target.”
This is good advice. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. But here’s the thing. Writing it all down is step one. The part nobody talks about is what happens after you make the list.
You stare at it. You feel the weight of 47 unfinished games. And then you close the spreadsheet and go back to scrolling Reddit.
The list isn’t the problem. The follow-through is.
Why Spreadsheets Fail (Even the Pretty Ones)
Spreadsheets are great for tracking data. They’re terrible for motivation.
A spreadsheet doesn’t care if you played three games this week or zero. It just sits there, a static wall of text and cells, waiting for you to manually update it. And when you don’t update it for a week, then two weeks, then a month, you stop opening it entirely. Now you’ve got a backlog AND an abandoned spreadsheet.
I’ve seen people build genuinely impressive tracking systems. Custom formulas that calculate total hours remaining. Conditional formatting that highlights games by platform. One person on eXputer Forums described building a color-coded Excel sheet with progress tiers, then admitted it became “too much” and they stopped using it.
The pattern is always the same. Build the system, use the system for a while, abandon the system, feel guilty about abandoning the system.
Here’s the actual problem: a spreadsheet has no feedback loop. You’re putting energy in and getting nothing back. There’s no reward for logging a game. No penalty for skipping a week. No sense of momentum.
You know what does have a feedback loop? Literally every game you’ve ever played.
You Already Know What Works (Your Games Taught You)
Think about why you keep playing the games you love. It’s not because someone told you to finish them. It’s because the game gives you something for showing up.
Elden Ring gives you runes and new gear. Baldur’s Gate 3 gives you story progression and relationship milestones. Even something simple like Stardew Valley gives you that satisfying end-of-day summary showing your progress.
XP. Streaks. Badges. Levels. Completion percentages. These aren’t random design choices. Game designers spend years perfecting these systems because they work. They tap into something in your brain that says, “I made progress today, and I want to make more tomorrow.”
So here’s the question nobody seems to be asking: why doesn’t your game tracker use the same tools?
Every “best game tracker” article I’ve read compares features like database size, social sharing, and Steam imports. None of them talk about gamification. None of them ask whether the tracker itself makes you want to come back.
And that’s the missing piece.
What Actually Works for Managing Your Backlog
Here’s what I’ve learned after years of messing with different systems. The stuff that actually sticks has a few things in common.
Make Logging Faster Than Thinking About It
If it takes more than 30 seconds to log a game, you won’t do it. Period. Spreadsheets fail here because you have to open a file, find the right row, fill in multiple columns, and save. By the time you’re done, it feels like work.
The best tracking systems let you search for a game, tap it, add a quick rating, and move on. That’s it. If you want to write a note about it, cool. But the core action needs to be nearly instant.
Track What You’re Feeling, Not Just What You Finished
Most trackers are obsessed with completion status. Playing, Completed, Backlogged, Abandoned. But that doesn’t capture the thing you’ll actually want to remember six months from now: what you thought about the game while you were in it.
A one-line note like “Finally beat Margit after 15 tries, hands were shaking” is worth more than a checkmark in a “completed” column. I started adding quick notes to my game logs, and it changed everything. Scrolling through those months later is like reading a diary of my best gaming moments.
Give Yourself Visible Momentum
This is the big one. You need to see progress, not in your backlog shrinking (that takes forever and feels discouraging), but in your activity itself.
Did you log 5 games this week? That’s a streak. Did you try a game from a genre you don’t normally play? That could be a badge. Did you log something every day for a month straight? That’s an achievement worth celebrating.
The goal isn’t to “clear your backlog.” That framing turns gaming into a chore. The goal is to build a habit of playing intentionally and recording what you experience. The backlog takes care of itself when you’re actually playing instead of scrolling.
Organize by Mood, Not by Alphabetical Order
One of the smartest things I did was stop organizing my games by title and start organizing them by what kind of session I’m in the mood for.
Got 20 minutes? Short roguelike session. Feeling stressed? Something chill and low-stakes. Want to be challenged? Time for that FromSoft game you’ve been avoiding. Brain is fried and you just want to zone out? Cozy game or something you’ve already played through once.
When your library is organized around how you feel, “what should I play” stops being a 45-minute decision and starts being a 10-second one.
Stop Tracking Everything. Track What Matters.
You don’t need to log every mobile game you played for five minutes on the train. You don’t need to track every single game in your Steam library. That’s how spreadsheets turn into monsters.
Track the games you actually care about. The ones you’re actively playing, the ones you finished and want to remember, and the ones you’re genuinely excited to start. That’s it. Your “backlog” is not 200 games. It’s the 15 or 20 you’d actually sit down and play if you had unlimited time.
Be honest about that number, and the whole thing feels a lot more manageable.
Set One Rule and Stick to It
The people I’ve seen actually make progress on their backlogs all have one thing in common. They picked a single rule and followed it. Not five rules. Not a system. One.
Some examples that work:
“I finish what I start before buying something new.” That’s it. One game at a time.
“I play for at least 20 minutes before I’m allowed to switch.” This kills the scroll-and-quit loop where you bounce between three games and never get into any of them.
“If a game doesn’t grab me in two hours, I drop it and move on with zero guilt.” This one is from a commenter on eXputer who said it cut their backlog in half because they stopped forcing themselves through games they weren’t enjoying.
Pick whatever rule fits how you actually play. The point is to give yourself a decision framework, so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you sit down.
Three Backlog Mistakes That Keep You Stuck
Before we talk tools, there are a few traps I see people fall into over and over.
Treating Your Backlog Like a Job
The second you start saying, “I need to get through these games,” you’ve already lost. Gaming is not a to-do list. If working through your backlog feels like an obligation, something is off with how you’re framing it.
You don’t owe your Steam library anything. Those games will still be there in a year, and half of them will be on sale for less than you paid. Give yourself permission to ignore games you’re not excited about. Removing something from your list isn’t failure. It’s honesty.
Buying New Games While Ignoring Old Ones
This is the one everyone knows, but nobody stops doing. Steam has a sale. PlayStation drops a new batch of Plus titles. Game Pass adds 12 games on a Tuesday. And suddenly your backlog grew by six games before you finished one.
I’m not going to tell you to stop buying games. That advice never works. But I will say this: every new game you add without finishing or dropping an existing one makes the paralysis worse. If you’re going to buy something new, at least drop something old. Keep the number steady.
Going All-In on Tracking Then Burning Out
This is the spreadsheet trap I already mentioned, but it applies to any tracking system. Some people get so excited about organizing their backlog that the organizing becomes the hobby. They spend more time sorting, tagging, and rating than they do playing.
Your tracking system should take less than a minute per game session. If it’s taking longer than that, you’ve overcomplicated it. Log the game, add a note if you want to, and go live your life.
A Tracker That Thinks Like a Gamer
I spent a long time looking for something that checked all these boxes. Backloggd is solid for cataloging video games, but there’s no app and no gamification. GG has a clean mobile experience but locks features behind a paid tier. HowLongToBeat is great for estimating playtime but it’s not really a tracker. BGG handles tabletop games well, but it looks like it hasn’t been redesigned since 2005.
None of them combine video games and tabletop games in one place. None of them give you XP for logging. None of them have streaks or badges or any kind of motivation loop.
That’s why I built SavePoint.
SavePoint tracks both video games and board games in the same app. You get XP for logging, streaks for consistency, and journal entries so you can capture quick thoughts without pulling out a notebook. It’s got a curated database of 13,200 games, and the whole thing is built around one idea: tracking your games should feel as rewarding as playing them.
I built it because I couldn’t find it anywhere else. And I think a lot of you are looking for the same thing.
Your Backlog Isn’t the Enemy
I want to leave you with something that took me way too long to figure out.
Your backlog isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a collection you’ve built over years. It’s full of games you were excited about at one point, and a lot of them will still be there whenever you’re ready.
The goal isn’t to reach zero. The goal is to play more intentionally, remember what you played, and actually enjoy the process of working through your library instead of dreading it.
If a spreadsheet works for you, genuinely, keep using it. But if you’re like me and you need something that gives back a little energy every time you open it, try something different.
Your gaming time is limited. Make it count.
What’s your backlog situation look like? Still using a spreadsheet? Gave up entirely? Come tell us about it in the TAG community, or try SavePoint and see if gamified tracking clicks for you.
