Comment by yreg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yreg | Hacker News Reader

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>But movies and video games I have severe analysis paralysis that leads to a lot of browsing and no actual watching or playing.

I suffered of this problem as well and I believe I managed to solve it.

## Netflix

- I only open Netflix when I know what I'm going to watch.

- When I don't know what to watch it means I'm not in the mood for anything I'm currently planning to watch. So I don't open Netflix, I go to YouTube instead.

- When I know what I want to watch (these days I'm binging Mr. Robot) I favourite things that catch my interest while using the app. This is the only time for new content discovery within Netflix.

## Steam

It might sound ridiculous but I've found that to power through I need to approach games like work. I have to dedicate time for it - a weekend, or even take a vacation (I found that the time around the end of the year works best for me). Since it is something I plan, I discuss what to play with my friends and make a decision beforehand.

When the vacation comes, I make myself play at least 8 hours a day on the same regime as if I was working. After a few days I get into it and then I can continue the game in some normal occasional schedule as well. I've been able to enjoy the Mass Effect games in this way the last winter and Witcher 3 the year before that. I don't think I've managed to enjoy a single player storytelling game to such extent in the decade before that.

I try to avoid opening my 500+ game 80% unplayed Steam library. When I don't know what to play, I don't open Steam, I open YouTube and watch some let's play instead.

Good advice - I think if I approached streaming apps as a means to watch something that I already have chosen to watch, and less as a means of finding something to watch, it would be a more purposeful activity and thus wouldn't feel like something that ends in frustration.

For gaming, there's an added dimension every time I browse my Steam library in that I need to consider not only whether I'm in the mood for each game, but also how long it is, how are checkpoints spaced out, does it have complex mechanics or story line that I would have trouble following if I took a break for a few weeks, etc.

I have identified that starting a new game is the hardest part for me - getting past the tutorial phase, getting into the mechanics and game loop - it always feels like a bit of a chore (that hopefully turns into something fun, eventually). So, just not worrying about it until I can block off a good couple of "work days" to get into it isn't a bad idea.

I should probably give in to YouTube play-throughs more often though. I used to avoid them because I didn't want to spoil the game if I intended to play it some day myself, but realistically I could probably gain a lot of what I'm looking for with less stress this way.

> I only open Netflix when I know what I'm going to watch.

Only to realize that it's not in their library (anymore).

I solved this by simply not using the streaming services as my catalog service. Make the list in something all encompassing like IMDB so when you pull it up you can quickly find what services have your content available instead of the other way around. Jumping on Netflix so I can find what I want to watch is just backwards. If I have a catalog of movies & shows marked watched later and I can't ever seem to find any available on <x service> then why would I keep an <x service> subscription.

This comes with the bonus that recommendations are based on what you have liked across all services not what the service has it thinks it can convince you is good enough based on only what that service has convinced you to watch before. It also keeps your watch history in one place which makes referencing easier.

I'm in EU and this didn't happen to me yet (although I've watched Friends while I could).

It sometimes feels like I'm the only netizen who is happy with the Netflix catalogue, but to be honest I think they have a giant pile of great shows; many more than I have time or mood to watch. I believe the issue is that they produce an even bigger pile of shows that are utterly shit, so if you just play something at random there is a high chance of it being low quality. To me that doesn't matter much as long as there is enough of the good stuff.

Great life hack, what you said on steam. Will try to do that, too.

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