As long as partners, the industry, the quest for efficiency are bringing you good value creating ideas why visit the backlog at all? For me the backlog is often a ledger of things we've previously considered.

I have a personal list of books, articles and movies that I wanted to read/watch at some point. However, most of the time new books, articles and movies are what I consume my time. On a occasion, I'll look at my lists and say, "oh yeah, I really need to read that." But the most common thing I do with my personal backlog of things to do is delete from it. So many of the items have gone stale and are no longer relevant to my needs.

Thanks for typing this up David. Great perspective.