In 2024, I included in my Project Life album for the first time the media I consumed throughout the year, using 6″ x 8″ pages divided into 2″ x 2″ pockets and Avery self-adhesive insertable tabs. I enjoyed the practice and continued it in 2025.

In 2024, I included thumbnails for only the movies I streamed at home. In 2025, I included thumbnails for movies that I streamed at home (on the left) and movies that I watched in the theater (on the right), separated by pages holding my “movie ticket stubs” (I am endlessly annoyed about the disappearance of well-designed and quality-crafted ephemera).

I included only those TV shows and podcasts that I watched or listened to either in full (season or series) or consistently throughout the year. If I watched an episode or two of a TV show or listened to an episode or two of a podcast to get a feel for it and didn’t continue watching or listening beyond that episode or two, I didn’t include it.

I do realize that I watch a lot of TV. Much of my TV time is spent pedaling away on a stationary bike.

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For the curious:

Most enjoyed documentary/docuseries in 2025:

• Listers

So (SO!) good.

Most enjoyed movie in 2025:

• Companion

Most enjoyed TV shows in 2025:

The perennial favorites:

• Bad Sisters
• Call the Midwife
• Dark Winds
• Severance
• Slow Horses

The others:

• Fisk
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Homeland
• Pernille
• Scandal

I LOVE a good soapy show (Call the Midwife, Grey’s), and a good DC show/political drama (Homeland, Scandal, Slow Horses). Homeland was partly a rewatch (I’d seen only the first four seasons). I’d never seen Grey’s or Scandal before and I loved both. Fisk is excellent autistic representation. Pernille, a Norwegian show on Netflix, was my favorite watch all year. Charming, heart-wrenching, funny. I wanted to live inside their life. 12/10.

Most enjoyed podcasts in 2025:

The perennial favorites:

• Diss and Tell (RIP)
• Even the Royals (RIP)
• I Said No Gifts!
• Scamfluencers
• Smosh Reads Reddit

The others:

• Articles of Interest
• The Knife: Off Record
• The Severance Podcast
• The Telepathy Tapes
• Trail Tales
• True Crime Bullshit

The latest season of Articles of Interest—”Gear”—is so good. It explores how military apparel inspired America’s early outdoor industry, and how military apparel continues to inspire that industry, as well as streetwear and fashion in general. For example, did you know Lockheed Martin makes streetwear? Neither the fuck did I.

I started listening to The Knife: Off Record after hearing a teaser for an episode of the show that covers the murder of someone who was, once upon a time, in my social circle. It was the first time I’d listened to a true crime podcast from the perspective of someone who knew the victim and it completely rewired how I think about true crime podcasts and the true crime industry. The hosts did a great job with the story, and I’ve been listening ever since.

The Severance Podcast and Trail Tales were my go-to podcasts while hiking last summer, The Telepathy Tapes is always interesting (and controversial), and I will forever be seated for True Crime Bullshit, a deeply researched and well-produced podcast about the crimes and victims of serial killer Israel Keyes.

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Related: this chart depicting IMDB ratings of various TV shows between 2000 and 2025.

Last year, I decided to more completely document the media I consumed throughout the year in my Project Life album: docuseries, movies, podcasts, TV shows. I didn’t include books (I didn’t read much last year) or music (I don’t really listen to music). I used 6″ x 8″ page protectors divided into 12 pockets, each measuring 2″ x 2″, and printed 2″ x 2″ thumbnails for each piece of media, six to each 4″ x 6″ piece of photo paper.

Because I didn’t have the idea to do this until mid-November, it’s not a complete, and therefore not a completely accurate, record. I did the best I could by pulling from memory and going through my watch and listening history in my streaming apps. It’s complete and accurate enough.

I considered organizing each category chronologically. That quickly became too complicated. Not every streaming service tracks when you streamed what (only what you streamed and in what order), and anyway, do you list things in order of starting them or finishing them? What about things that don’t have a clear finish date, like podcasts or TV shows that release episodes weekly instead of seasonally? Or docuseries or TV shows or serialized podcasts that you started and are still watching or listening to at the end of the year but haven’t fully finished yet? I decided to organize each category alphabetically.

They’re not the most attractive pages. Frankly, I think they’re an eyesore. Visually overwhelming. Because they live in the back of my album, their unattractiveness and overwhelmingness bother me less than they would otherwise.

I decided not to include thumbnails of the movies I watched in theaters with those of the movies I streamed at home. Instead, I saved the ticket stubs for those movies in standard 6″ x 8″ page protectors divided into 3″ x 4″ pockets. These I organized chronologically. (These “ticket stubs” can hardly be called ticket stubs. They’re nothing more than shitty receipts. My outrage over the harbinger that is the disappearance of well-designed and quality crafted ephemera is deep and wide and intense.)

The labels for each section are Avery self-adhesive insertable tabs.

This year, I’m keeping a note in my phone to document each category of media as I consume it, and plan to again organize each category in my album alphabetically. Every four to six weeks, I go through said note in my phone, grab a thumbnail for each entry I’ve added since the last time I reviewed the list, add those thumbnails to a template in Photoshop Elements, and check it off in my phone. This way, I’m not scrambling at the end of the year, completely overwhelmed by doing everything all at once.

Printing is the only thing I plan to put off until the end of this year or early next. Partly because I don’t want to misplace printed sheets of thumbnails. Mostly because I know I’ll be tempted to immediately cut out each thumbnail and slip all of them in pockets, which, because I’m organizing them alphabetically, will create more work for me, which will frustrate me, as I’ll inevitably have to remove and rearrange the thumbnails as new media are added to the list.

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For the curious:

Most-enjoyed docuseries in 2024:

• Untold: Hall of Shame

Most-enjoyed movies (streaming) in 2024:

• His Three Daughters
• Run

Most-enjoyed podcasts in 2024:

• Diss and Tell
• Even the Royals
• I Said No Gifts!
• Extreme: Muscle Men
• Normal Gossip
• Scamfluencers
• Smosh Reads Reddit

Most-enjoyed TV shows in 2024:

• Bad Sisters
• Boy Swallows Universe
• Call the Midwife
• Dark Winds
• Ripley
• Severance (rewatch)
• Slow Horses
• The Perfect Couple
• This is Us
• Your Honor

Severance is an obvious choice. Along with it, Bad Sisters, Dark Winds, and Slow Horses stand above the rest (especially Dark Winds).

Most-enjoyed movie (theater) in 2024:

• Conclave