People often ask me how I keep up with the literature. Honest answer:

I don't.

Maybe there are some academics who have time to read every paper that is in their research area. Good for them. I do my best, but I can't do everything. If you're like me, know that you're not alone.

I've also found that just admitting this to myself has made a huge difference. It made reading papers fun again rather than just another guilt-inducing exercise where I always felt behind. You can definitely put search engines or a group slack in place to catch the "must read."

And then for everything else, read what you can and let go of the rest. If it's really important to your research and you've somehow missed it, likely it will come up in a conversation with a colleague or as a reference in another paper you read and you can catch it then.