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I've got a soft spot for entertainment and storytelling.
I love my shows and immersing myself into fiction and the psychology behind the characters as well.
Earlier this year, my wife wanted me to watch Supernatural with her because of our interest in monsters.
I've always found a fascination in origins of monsters and the types of monsters history has written about.
Anyway, we started watching it every night after our work day was done and after we ate dinner.
While a little cheesy and dramatic at times, it has won our hearts.
Today, we are on the final season - yes, we made it this far in a matter of months.
What the show runners did really well with was the dramatic endings of some episodes.
So much so that my wife & I succumb to the "just one more episode" effect.
Initially, this was bad because we went past our bed time.
Now we've got it a bit more under control. ;)
We all get hit with this effect, and it is why some shows are so compelling than others.
The irresistible pull you feel isn't just marketing.
It's rooted in fundamental psychology - specifically the Zeigarnik Effect (something I talked about in my previous post).
This phenomenon describes our brain's tendency to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
Netflix executives understand this psychology perfectly.
Their entire platform is engineered to create these "open loops" in your mind: cliffhangers that make it nearly impossible to stop watching because your brain literally craves closure.
Now what if I told you this effect, the one that keeps you binging shows late into night, could be repurposed for yourself?
That it can be transmuted into the most powerful habit-building tool you've never used?
We can start things off by thinking about motivation.
Our decisions are a result of a world of competing motivations.
Whatever is the easiest to do at the time, comes out on top.
And when it comes to "feeling motivated" about starting a workout routine or working on a project, these things are new territory.
They're typically the things that are last on the list of a million things we'd rather do.
However, the Zeigarnik Effect reveals a counterintuitive truth: sometimes motivation for the things we want often come after starting, not before.
Our brains naturally want to finish what we begin.
Yet we continue abandoning workout plans, aspiring projects and maintaining consistent habits... all while binging entire seasons of shows without a second thought.
What would happen if you could harness this same psychological principle that keeps you watching Netflix for your fitness goals, work projects, and personal habits?
What if, instead of fighting your brain's natural tendencies, you could design your habits to work with them?
In this post, we are going to explore the Netflix Effect, and how you can leverage this effect to create habits you desire to build the life you want.
Let's dive in!
"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
From an evolutionary perspective, our brain's fixation on unfinished business makes perfect sense.
Our ancestors needed to remember incomplete survival tasks: finding shelter before nightfall or tracking prey until the hunt was complete.
Those who forgot unfinished survival tasks didn't survive to pass on their genes.
This powerful cognitive mechanism is still running in your brain today.
The problem is, we need to be aware of it because everything around us is using it against us.
Conventional wisdom on productivity tells you to "finish what you start".
We make comprehensive to-do lists and feel we must complete everything.
We push to finish workouts until exhaustion.
We try to write reports from start to finish in one sitting.
This approach seems logical but can sometimes fight against your brain's natural wiring.
Complete exhaustion and total task completion actually signal your brain to disengage completely.
This can remove the very tension that would keep you mentally engaged and eager to dive right back in.
Consider how the industries around us leverage this psychology:
These aren't accidental.
They're deliberate psychological hooks.
Now, think about how you can leverage this for your own benefit.
Let me give you an example.
There was a time when I was a few years into my fitness journey where I hated my workouts.
They got redundant and boring.
The excitement, the passion, the fire, was gone.
I almost quit entirely because of this, however, at the time, exercise helped my depression since my teens.
And I feared about going back to the person I was before exercise.
However, I noticed something interesting: when I decided to cut my workout short due to time constraints, I found myself actually looking forward to getting the rest of the workout done the following day.
I couldn't stop thinking about the exercises I didn't complete.
In fact, just like a toxic relationship, distance made me want to lift more.
Jokes aside, this effect made me realize that if I changed my approach a bit, I could reignite excitement and motivation to complete all of my exercises.
Within a few weeks, I started loving fitness again.
What I realized was that strategic incompletion made me want to stay consistent.
It helped me create a productive open loop in my brain.
Rather than fighting against my natural psychological tendencies, this approach worked with them.
This is pretty powerful for exercise and nutrition habits, especially when starting, where consistency matters over intensity to start.
The person who does moderate workouts consistently for years achieves far better results than someone who does extreme workouts sporadically for a few days out of the month.
So in sharing with you the Netflix Effect, I want to let you know this is not about tricking yourself.
It's about understanding and working with your brain's natural tendencies rather than against them.
It's the psychological "cheat code" that transforms sporadic effort into consistent habits by making you actually want to return to activities you previously avoided.
With that being said, let's get into it!
"Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence." - Patrick Lencioni
When Netflix automatically starts playing the next episode 5 seconds after a cliffhanger, they're not just hoping you'll keep watching.
They're applying sophisticated psychological principles almost impossible to resist.
The cool thing is you can apply these same principles to create irresistible momentum in your own habits.
The most counterintuitive aspect of the Netflix Technique is learning when to stop.
Most of us have been taught to push until completion or exhaustion.
However, sometimes this actually works against momentum.
In fact, overhauling your entire diet or going from one workout a month to one daily is a fast way to burn yourself out.
Consider something like this instead: if you find yourself struggling to get your entire workout session in at the gym, start by doing one exercise at home.
This could be something like push ups, or doing something like using a jiu-jitsu dummy to get some submission reps in.
Do that for 5 minutes, and think about how it makes you feel.
This action alone should start to spark some motivation to get in your car to go to the gym, or to complete your home workout in its entirety.
All because you don't want to leave your workout unfinished.
My post on the Minimum Viable Workout Plan covers another variation of this that you can take a look at as well.
This approach works equally well for creative work.
Ernest Hemingway stopped writing each day mid-sentence, even when he knew exactly what came next.
This created a natural entry point for continuing the next day, eliminating an intimidating blank page or creative burnout.
For studying, stop immediately after formulating an interesting question, not after finding the answer.
Your brain will naturally keep working on the problem in the background, and you'll feel pulled to return to resolve the tension.
The science is clear: stopping strategically creates stronger psychological pull than either stopping too early (when barely engaged) or pushing to complete exhaustion (which creates aversion).
Consider leveraging this for whatever habit you're trying to build.
Make it so that you keep wanting more.
Netflix doesn't just end episodes at moments of high tension.
They actively create questions that demand answers in the next episode.
You can create this same effect in your habits.
End your workout sessions with explicit challenges for next time:
"Next session, I'll try to beat today's 10-rep record on push-ups."
"On the next upper body workout, I'm going to try to get an extra rep in on the third set of my bench press".
This creates an open question in your mind that builds anticipation.
For work projects, intentionally create "to-be-continued" points.
Instead of trying to complete an entire presentation, stop after creating an outline with one section partially developed.
Keep clear notes about your best ideas for the remaining sections.
For reading or learning, end study sessions by writing down one question raised by the material that you'll explore in the next session.
This mental "bookmark" keeps your brain engaged with the material even when you're not actively studying.
These aren't just arbitrary stopping points either.
They're forward-looking challenges that create anticipation for the next session.
"What gets measured, gets managed." - Peter Drucker
Towards the end of the season, Netflix will show you many episodes remain in a season, creating a visual "incompletion" that motivates you to continue watching.
I remember in one of the seasons of Supernatural, "3 episodes left of this season" compelled us to watch all 3, going past our regular bedtime.
We NEEDED to see how the season concluded!
You can leverage this same principle.
Rather than hiding your incomplete progress, make it prominent.
Create things like progress bars, trackers, or visualizations that highlight what remains to be done rather than just what you've accomplished.
Research from endowed progress studies shows that people persist longer when they can see they've made progress but still have clear steps remaining.
The key is making this visual incompletion impossible to ignore.
Fitness apps like Fitbod, Strava, and Strong leverage this principle by showing streaks, weekly targets, and visual representations of incomplete goals.
RPG-Themed Habit Tracking apps like Habitica encourage you to do your habits to "build experience points" so that you can upgrade your characters.
You can apply the same to your goals.
Think about the pull you get when you're 70-80% complete: just far enough to feel you can't abandon progress, but not so far that you feel you can coast.
It draws you in to finish the task.
For nutrition habits, a partially completed week tracker prominently displayed on your refrigerator, for example, can create more consistent behavior compared to not tracking your progress at all.
One of Netflix's most effective features is automatically queuing up the next episode.
The viewer doesn't have to make any decisions or overcome any friction to continue.
The path is already set up.
You can create this same "path of least resistance" for your habits without actually starting the activity itself, leaving an irresistible open loop.
For workouts, try setting up your exercise space the night before: lay out clothes, prepare your water bottle, queue your playlist, but stop short of actually changing or beginning.
This partial preparation creates a mental hook that makes starting the next day dramatically easier.
For cooking healthy meals, try pre-chopping vegetables but leaving the main protein unprepared.
This creates a natural entry point that makes completing the meal preparation much more likely than starting from scratch.
For creative work, open your document and write just the title or first sentence, then close it.
The next time you sit down, you'll have eliminated the blank page intimidation.
You're intentionally leaving the task slightly unfinished, creating an open loop that your brain wants to close.
You will be more inclined to close it.
Netflix doesn't just create tension through cliffhangers.
It also provides immediate rewards through entertainment and resolution of previous questions.
This balanced approach of tension and reward keeps viewers engaged episode after episode.
Instead of saving all rewards for major milestones (which may be too distant to motivate consistent action), create a series of sequential, escalating rewards that maintain open loops.
For fitness habits, create a "reward tree" where completing workouts unlocks sequential rewards of increasing value - but never all at once.
After 3 workouts, unlock a small treat like a favorite snack.
After 10 workouts, a new piece of workout gear.
After 25 workouts, a bigger reward like new shoes.
Ensure each reward creates anticipation for the next level, maintaining the open loop rather than creating complete satisfaction.
The Netflix Effect is a shift in how you structure activities to work with your brain's natural tendencies rather than against them.
Traditional approaches to habit building focus on willpower and motivation.
These are all limited and exhaustible resources.
The Netflix Effect instead leverages the Zeigarnik Effect, your brain's natural tendency to remember and return to unfinished tasks.
By creating strategic incompletion in your workout routines and your other personal habits, you transform the activities into something more exciting.
To conclude, I want you to understand this: the most powerful aspect of the Netflix Effect is that it becomes self-reinforcing over time.
Each successfully closed loop builds confidence in your ability to follow through, creating positive momentum that extends beyond the specific habit.
You eventually build a "Life Resume" of the sort that shows you that it's possible to do the hard and fulfilling things, even when your brain wants you to embrace comfort.
Start with just one of these techniques today:
Your brain is already wired to respond to open loops.
Netflix and other entertainment platforms have been leveraging this psychology for years.
Isn't it time you used the same powerful principles for your own growth rather than someone else's profit?
The next episode of your life is about to begin.
The question is: will you be the one writing the script?
Until next time!
Many of us are attached to other people's opinions, and it's keeping you trapped in a life you hate.
You change your personality to accommodate someone in the room with you.
You sit in silence when you should be speaking up for yourself or someone else… all because you're terrified of judgment.
And for what?
Your future self is calling.
Are you ready to pick up the pen?
