How to Finally Get Through Your Seemingly Endless Netflix Queue Netflix is great at providing a lot of things to watch, but sometimes it seems like theres almost too much. If you have a hard time actually getting to the things on your list—or find yourself watching the same things over and over—these tips can help. There are bigger problems in life, sure, but dont act like youve made any real headway getting through your queue. You finally find some time to lounge on your couch, but you just sit there, staring at all the movies and TV shows, unable to decided what to watch. So you start Friends or The Office from the beginning for the 17th time, even though you have a ton of other stuff in your list that you really do want to watch. Heres a systematic way to start actually making your way through your streaming Everest. Step One: Stop Adding Things to Your Queue (For Now) Netflix is constantly adding new things to their instant streaming service, but that doesnt mean you need to add all of it. For now, until you can get your list under control, promise yourself that you wont add anything else. Dont worry, just because you dont add something immediately doesnt mean its going to disappear forever. If Netflix pulls something from their service, it goes away regardless of whether you have it in your queue or not. So stop adding things for now, and remember, you can always search for something if the mood strikes. Step Two: Find Your Netflix Albatross and Cull Your Queue Now that youve damned up the river of TV shows and movies coming in, you need to grab a pail and start chucking the things you arent actually going to watch. This can be tough to start doing, though, so find what Yahoo! tech columnist Rob Walker calls your Netflix Albatross. This is that one movie or TV show thats been in your queue since you signed up for the service years ago and you still havent even started it. You look at it all the time like, Oh I really want to watch that someday, but you never do. Youve probably watched 100 other things, but for some reason this particular viewing experience remains untouched. Say goodbye and remove it from the queue for good. If you wanted to watch it, you would have by now. Its no different than removing the things from your to-do list that just never seem to get done. Clearly theres no motivation, so why clutter things up? Now that youve made the first move, cull the rest of your queue while youre at it. Go through your entire list and ask yourself am I really going to watch this ever? for every single thing. Even better, if youre not 100% sure that you want to watch something, get rid of it for now. What youll be left with is a mostly prioritized list of the things you actually want to watch at this point in time. Step Three: Sort Whats Left Take what youve got and organize things to your liking. With a userscript, You can have everything separated into different categories like TV shows and movies, or you can tackle things alphabetically. Or you can even prioritize your entire queue and make certain movies or TV shows appear at the beginning of your list, regardless of when you added them. That way you can start with whatever has you the most excited first. If you watch Netflix from your browser, extensions like our own Flix Plus makes controlling your account even easier. You can hide the shows or movies youve already watched, hide entire sections of recommendations if you know you wont be interested in something in there, or even add notes to the things in your list about why you added it or when you want to watch it. Step Four: Watch Only One or Two Series at a Time With a list of priority things to watch, its best to focus your attention to only a couple of them. You dont need to binge watch—though it sure is fun—just focus on completing each series or movie. Again, just like a to-do list, youre better off focusing on one thing at a time, instead of doing a little here and a little there. It feels good to finish things, even if it just a movie! Step Five: Remove Things After Finishing Them (or When You Lose Interest) This is one of the most important steps. Once your done with something, cross it off the list. If you leave it in your queue youll succumb to its charms all over again and end up re-watching things. Theres nothing actually wrong with re-watching things, but if youre interested in covering as much ground as possible, you dont to leave around any traps for yourself. On the same note, if you start something and it just isnt doing it for you, remove it. Life is short, and the amount of time you have to indulge in glorious movies and TV shows is a lot shorter. Dont waste it watching something that you dont really enjoy. Some might say that you can benefit socially from watching really popular things, but its not always worth it. Remember: Getting through your Netflix queue isnt about watching more TV, its about watching the stuff thats going to make you happiest during those lazy moments of the week. Keep an open mind, but dont torture yourself, either. Repeat this system and youll eventually have a manageable, browse-able, list of things to watch. No more staring at your queue in indecision. Keep in mind, that the point isnt to spend more time watching Netflix, but to actually use your lounge-around time productively. Its time to finally watch all of those things you want to. ift.tt/1zoKUIM
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:14:57 +0000
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