At this time of year, it's just another piece of psychological baggage you don't need: the weight of all that television you've recorded but haven't watched, sitting there on your hard drive like a stack of unwritten thank-you letters.
In the old days if you missed some TV, it was gone. Now, unwatched episodes of The Killing stack up, obliging you to invent theoretical holes in your schedule when you might be able to catch up. Meanwhile, spoilers crop up everywhere – in TV reviews, on Twitter, in stray remarks from colleagues, in short articles about the tyranny of the TV hard drive (not this one, though; I'm three episodes behind).
Eventually you run out of space, obliging you to sacrifice an unwatched programme in order to record one you may never see. TV is meant to be entertainment, not homework. It's time for drastic measures:
1 Don't hang on to anything you've already digested, no matter how good. You are never going to need the season opener of Fresh Meat for reference purposes.
2 Delete any classic movies you've recorded in an idle moment after noticing they were being shown at 3am. Take my word for it: Dog Day Afternoon will come round again.
3 If your box records episode three of a show before you've managed to glimpse even a minute of episode one, you should probably think about writing off the whole series. Life is short. Secret State isn't.
4 Accept spoilers for what they are – an opportunity to move on. Chelsea lost, Flintoff won, Union J got voted off.
5 Remember: anything "part-recorded" is also "part-deleted". Finish the job.
6 Get rid of any "good" films you recorded because you thought you ought to watch them. You won't. After three months I have finally realised the universe is never going to experience a wrinkle in time large enough for me to get to grips with Tree of Life.
7 Remember when your children deleted a key episode of Homeland so they could jam in two more South Parks they had already seen? It's time to return the favour.
8 Stop dithering, and just admit that you have fallen out of love with Boardwalk Empire.
9 Take a day off sick, watch everything, start again.
10 Try watching Saturday's final episode of The Killing without bothering with the previous two. It'll only be marginally more confusing.
