I take a similar approach when I make my top ten list of television at the end of the year. While I do look at some major publications for guidance, I tend to make my own independent judgements. I also make it clear upfront that my criticism is based solely on the shows that I saw during the course of the calendar year and that many of the series that will be on other lists I didn't see because I had neither the time nor the interest.

(This is not as big a deal as books but I have at most time for fifty to sixty series during the course of the year out of hundreds of shows.)

I have also historically gone to areas most critics choose to omit during their time, specifically network television. Furthermore, I tend to not front load my lists with the same network or service for many shows (there will only be one, maybe two shows from Netflix, for example) And I've had what I call a Grand Jury Prize which amounts to an honorable mention . In his last years Roger Ebert did the same thing for his best films of the year and as he's been my north star for so much of my work I have chosen to model myself after that.

Just added that to the mix. I know its not precisely on point but it does focus on the first two points at the end of the article.