A few years ago, I realized that I was buying way too many games. Actually, this has been true for at least the past two decades, and well, I’ve known it all along. I mean, it’s very easy to amass a large collection of games than you have yet to play. With so many weekly deals, holiday specials, and peer pressure from your friends, it’s not hard to give in. Even if you make a cutoff for yourself — say, nothing older than the 16-bit generation or nothing more than $20 — you still end up with dozens (if not hundreds!) of titles in your queue.

Enter the Backlog Blitz. Originally conceived on my favorite gaming forum NeoGAF as a way for members to focus on playing games they own, this has become my preferred way to track what I’m buying, playing, and finishing.

How does it work? It’s simple: Each purchase counts as a -1, and each game played or completed counts as a +1. The goal is to stay in positive territory as much as possible. I don’t include gifts or freebies, and bundles count as single purchases. You also don’t have to finish a game to get a +1, especially if you’re not enjoying it.

This is the third year tracking my progress. The first year (2012) wasn’t pretty. I ended up with an overall score of -36. Those Steam, GoG, and Humble Bundle holiday sales destroyed me! That was also the year I bought a Nexus 7, so I went a little overboard on Google Play.

In 2013, I did much better and finished the year with a +3. That’s cutting it close, but I was pretty happy with the results, and was thankful that the Steam holiday sale offerings were more or less a repeat of 2012’s.

2014 has been a good year so far, and I’m at +12 right now. I’m slipping a little bit in April, but that should be remedied soon as I wrap up Batman: Arkham Origins on PC and Persona 4 Golden on Vita.