Dunkelheit

Autistic Completionism: A Guide

When it comes to organising things and working through backlogs I have a system that seems completely insane to some and over-engineered to many. But it works and it works in a way that I like which actually makes it the best system.

I’ll first give an example of how I apply this “IRL sorting algorithm” to my libraries of books and music then I will work through how I apply it to a digital context with directory hierarchies and naming schema(s).

Reading Orders and You

Have you ever looked at a book series and thought “man I would really love to read that but I have no idea where to start and there is so much to read”? Well that’s apparently normal to some people so hopefully my proposed rules for a reading order will be helpful to you. Put quite simply, you cannot got wrong with Release Order. Sometimes this might not apply and I will cover those exceptions but first let’s look at the facts and logic about why this approach totally owns the lib(rarie)s.

This is the order that the books were released in so it logically follows that they were written with this order in mind. Knowledge of events from book 1 may be required to understand book 2 but knowledge of events in book 2 will only retroactively contextualise events in book 1. Of course sometimes an author will come along and write a prequel and in my opinion the release order rule applies here still, perhaps this is when there is an even stronger case for it as prequels contextualise things that are already written in a manner that is intended to be understood from the perspective of a reader that has read the text it chronologically takes place before.

Sometimes a series has multiple authors and that can complicate things, I will use a famous example that I am familiar with as an example: The Horus Heresy. Books in this series are all written by various different authors, many of the early books were clearly written alongside other works in the series but with foreknowledge of what will occur in the books they are writing sequels to. In some cases in this series this does not hold up too well however by the point that you as the reader are approaching these books within the series you are likely familiar enough with the setting and it’s intricate and sometimes silly overlaps and retcons for it to not be an issue. Another example of some of the weirdness in this series is that some of the books are collections of short stories that take place at various different points within the setting and are not necessarily connected to one another or even to the greater story as a whole. However these books are obvious from their cover and for the most part you can pick and choose which of these to read based on your interests within the setting. This is where “reading order” suggestion lists online may start to be useful to you as a reader but ultimately if you want to read it all then release order will never let you down.

A good example of a large fantasy setting with a reading order issue is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. You can absolutely read this in release order, read the stand alones without context from the rest of the series (although they are more enjoyable if you have some knowledge of the setting) or you can choose to read a specific “mini-series” from within the setting. There are also two mini-series within this setting that are functional “start here” collections but these follow release order anyway.

Quite simply the release order almost always works out for the better and in the cases where it isn’t you will probably find out from minimal research about the series that you would likely be doing anyway as an interested reader.

The CD Shelf

How do I order my CDs, vinyl, etc? Categorised by genre, sorted alphabetically by Artist followed by release order.

Why do I order it like this? Discography marathons! In addition to aesthetic pairing. A lot of album spines are designed to fit alongside the preceeding album, this is not always the case though but even when it isn’t it still looks better this way somehow. It also just makes more sense to organise it this way as I only buy albums I REALLY like so I know enough about them to find them using this system than with another system. It’s no secret that I am an audio-sperg. I like to listen to music an album at a time, on specific audio hardware that I find pairs well with the album. Am I overthinking this? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No.

The Home Library

I organise books in a similar manner to how I suggest reading them and similarly to how I organise my music.

Categorised into fiction or non-fiction, then categorised into genres, then by author OR setting, then by series and then release order. This works really well for me. I always know where to look for a specific book instead of having to remember exactly where it is, which to be honest I tend to remember anyway due to the titular autism.

This is also how the bookshops I frequent tend to do things so it works in my favour in that regard as well as I am familiar with the system already.

The Digital CD Shelf

My method for sorting and organising digital music files is a close analog of what I do with physical media. Categorised into genres, then artists, then alphabetically by album name. The only difference being the use of album name alphabetical ordering instead of doing so by release year. This is done because it makes regex navigation easier with my setup. As well as making it easier for my friends to navigate it.

Autism?

Yes.