“There are two ways to live a life. Either forget everything or, remember nothing.”
― Santosh Kalwar
Introduction
With 2025 in the books and 2026 just beginning, I thought I pitch an idea for your new year’s resolution. Along with your fitness, financial, and career goals, why not start tracking what stories you send your time with? I’ve been doing it for a few years now, and I think it’s worth the effort. It’s helped me remember when I read or watch a particular story and what else I was enjoying about the same time. Some of us already spend time tracking our calories or weight , why not start tracking something a bit less complex?
Tracking your media consumption is a discipline. It’s not always convenient or fun. If you forget one too many times, you fall into the trap of neglecting it entirely. Because you might think “What’s the point now that you’ve already missed a few?” Well, people who are successful with their goals know that it’s not about hitting the target every single day. It’s more about consistency and moving forward despite the setbacks at times.
Why bring up this suggestion of tracking storytelling media in the first place? To that, I ask “You want to be an intentional storyteller, right?” Or at least, you want to appreciate it it more? I assume that is why you are here. But I could be wrong, of course. Maybe you saw my picture on the website and thought to yourself “What a funny looking guy! What goofy stuff is he writing about?” Regardless of why you are reading this, my point is that tracking your media can help you become someone who is more engaged with the content you are enjoying.
It’s too easy to become passive consumers. We binge watching whatever series comes our way or spend countless hours on the internet. When you track what you consume, it’s causing you to think about what you are spending your time doing directly, thus making you every so slightly more engaged in the world around you. Let’s break this down further and explore why tracking media helps you become more of an engaged storyteller.
Reflection:
I’ve already mentioned that tracking your media can help you engage more intentionally with stories, but how?
For myself, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Like way too many. I’ve been reigning in how many I listen to because I realize that there is such a thing as too many. Often times, I forget what was even discussed during these podcasts. But I’ve been taking time to write the name of each one I have listened to. That way I can go back and review what I had listened to. Seeing the title prompts a lot of memories about what was discussed during that episode.
Without tracking, I become forgetful about what I consume in a year (including books and movies). Writing them down helps me recall exactly what I consumed in a year and creates a little time capsule for me too look back on. This past year (2025), I read more books than I have the previous couple years. I’ve also watched less new movies than previous years. That was not necessarily my goal fro 2025 but it’s interesting to see it happen.
When reviewing your media at the end of the year, you can rank them. It’s a fun exercise, as it gets you to think critically about each story and what you appreciated or didn’t appreciate. It can help you decide which ones may be worth visiting again in the future. This year, I ranked my favorite new films I watched and wrote a brief summary on each one.
Self-Awareness:
As stated before, keeping track of what media you consumed is like creating a time capsule. You can review what you were giving your attention to the most at any given point of time. As you review the titles of the stories, you can think about what was going on through your head. I find that reading over the titles helps me remember where exactly was during that season of my life. I usually remember the story better than the mundane day to day routine.
How one appreciates or interprets a story is greatly affected by where they are in their life. Keeping track of your media may be beneficial as you get older and think about wanting to revisit some stories. Depending on when you first enjoyed a story, your mindset could have been completely different from where it is now. If you see the world a little differently now that you’re older and wiser, could the story be more meaningful now? It’s interesting to observe these changes in ourselves.
Perhaps there were phases in your life where you consumed a lot of more of a certain type of story than others. If you take the time to rank and review, you give yourself chance to observe what you preferred at the time. Perhaps there was a trend. Maybe you watched more movies in your youth but have transitioned to more books as you’ve aged. Perhaps you’ve gone back and forth between movies and books. Why would some years you have preferred more of one media format over the other? The media we consume often shapes us too. Maybe you can observe a trend about how certain stories have molded you.
What Media to Track?
This is completely up to you. This past year, I tracked new movies I watched, re-watched movies, new books, re-read books, TV shows, and podcasts. In 2026 I I am going to date everything I track to give me more of an exact idea of when I gave it my attention. I’ve thought about tracking the music I listen to, but it would be too time consuming. Tracking every single song would be a lot, especially if I am listening to music while working. For the movies I watch, I think I am going to rate them from 1 to 5 as I track them to get a better idea of how to rank them at the end of the year.
Some other media one might consider tracking would be YouTube videos or Video-Games. Perhaps you’ll track what blog posts you read. Maybe you’ll even get extreme and track all the Social Media content. It really depends on your goals. If you really want to be more mindful of the content you are consuming, tracking more of it may be a good thing. If you’re like me and are doing it more as a hobby, tracking every little thing could be overkill.
Is it possible to go overboard on tracking your storytelling media consumption? Possibly. For some people it could be come a distraction or fixation, depending on how much they are tracking. But in all likelihood, the percentage of people that would fall into this category are probably be very small. Most of our problem is that we’re consuming way too much to begin with.
Conclusion:
To sum it up; tracking your media is a great way to being moving from a passive consumer to an active consumer. Keeping track helps you remember and reflect on stories. Reviewing your list of media helps you observe patterns of what have consumed over time.
Over all, this leads to more intentionality on your part as the viewer. It requires you to think about the content you consuming and to write it down so it is not just another fleeting part of your life.
Start up a note on your phone, a google sheet, or grab a good ol’ fashion piece of paper and a pen and start tracking your media consumption today. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But as I like to say, better late than never!
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