Seven steps to cut down on the amount of TV you watch

As a disclaimer, my process worked for me, and it might not work for you. It'll likely be (more) helpful if the shows you tend to watch are serialized (or procedural with a substantial serialized element), and not strictly procedural, and if they tend to be more drama-oriented, as opposed to being comedy-oriented or documentaries (or god forbid, "reality" TV).

Step 1

 

Make a list of all of the TV shows that you currently watch. Make sure not to just include shows from the current TV season, but all the shows coming up in future seasons that you've watched in the past and plan to watch in the future.

If you're having trouble making the list comprehensive, you should consult your DVR (if you have one). Or, if you are a person that pirates shows, consult your torrent client.

I recently made such a list, and I ended up with 37 entries. It was absolutely shocking to me how high that number was.

Step 2

 

Go over your list of TV shows, and try and recall what happened in the show during the last few episodes that aired. If you can't remember, especially if the show is currently in season, cross the show off your list. If you're pretty hazy and don't remember very much, also cross it off your list.

My reasoning behind this step was that, the shows I most enjoy are easily memorable, even those that haven't been on the air for awhile. It was trivially easy to remember where Game of Thrones left off last season (before watching any of the current season), for example, but Franklin & Bash? Easily forgettable.

Step 3

 

Continuing from Step 2, consider all of the most memorable events that occurred on a particular show; events that shocked you, had you on the edge of your seat, or made you deeply feel for the characters. Of course, include moments where you burst into laughter and the like as well.

For shows that have run a long time, consider how these moments are distributed.  If it turns out that these moments are mostly all located at a point in time well before the last season or seasons aired, then cross the show off your list. Doing this might be extremely difficult, because there are shows that are initially so good that you fall in love, and keep watching them well past their prime. It seriously pained me to cross off Supernatural, Sons of Anarchy, and a few more from my list here, in part because of how much I enjoyed the first few seasons of each. As I was writing this, it occurred to me that if I had applied this test to Lost while it was still on their air, I never would have made it much farther than the initial season (but, that first season was absolutely masterful).

For all of the other shows, subdivide the number of memorable moments into kind of memorable moments, and spectacularly memorable moments. Write both numbers beside the show on your list, for use in future steps. Your numbers don't need to be exact, of course, just write down how many you can think of.

Step 4

 

Now that you've written your memorable moments numbers down, compare the different numbers you've given to different shows. Are there any that just seem extremely lackluster to you? There were on my list, and I promptly crossed most of them off. I noticed a huge trend here, too, in that most of the shows that were lackluster I was a bit "on the fence" with as far as the distribution of memorable moments went, or at least, I should have been. I crossed out Beauty and The Beast here, as well as Arrow here, as two examples.

Step 5

 

Are there any shows you haven't crossed off yet, where there's no sense of jeopardy for any of the characters at all (and/or you're just not emotionally invested in anymore), or where the lack of realism has built to the point of lunacy? I crossed out Pretty Little Liars here, as an example. I crossed out Dexter as well. Heck, I even put an extra cross through Arrow and Beauty and The Beast here, too. I honestly had a hard time believing that I was still watching some of the shows I crossed out here. I had a hard time believing that I didn't turn Beauty and The Beast off during the first episode, even, without the temptation to ever watch it again.

Step 6

 

Count how many shows that you haven't yet crossed off. Divide by 3. Write some other stuff that you enjoy, and which you can do in approximately one hour of time. How many things should you write? Whatever number you got when you divided, and then add 3 more things to it (yeah, so this is just kind of arbitrary--just don't write too few things down, and don't write too many down either). Really think about how much you enjoy these activities, why you enjoy them, and especially how you'd like to do them more.

Step 7

 

For all of the remaining shows on your list, compare the enjoyment and benefit you get from watching them versus all of the other things you just wrote down in Step 6. Cross off all of the shows where you'd rather be doing something else, as opposed to watching them.

I crossed out a bunch of shows here (actually, I had a huge number of shows on my list, so I crossed out a bunch at every step, haha), and I was a little sad to see some of them go, but at the same time it was obvious that it was time to stop watching those shows.

In Conclusion

All in all, I managed to whittle my list of shows down from a gigantic 37 to a much more respectable 5. Then, I decided to save Lost Girl as it was kind of on the bubble, and see where the current season goes. I decided to save Continuum while I was at it, and see how the new season goes. Finally, I very recently watched the premier of Da Vinci's Demons, and think I'll add it to my list of shows to watch as well.

List of shows I'll be watching (all of which are tentative of course, as I plan to periodically re-evaluate shows now, and you should too!):

• Lost Girl -- on the bubble
• Continuum -- on the bubble
• Breaking Bad
• True Blood
• Game of Thrones
• Homeland
• Doctor Who
• Da Vinci's Demons -- going to see where it goes

37 to 8 is pretty good, when all is said and done. Assuming an average of 20 episodes per season for everything I watched, and that the average show had 45 minutes of content that means I'll be saving about 26,100 minutes per year, or 435 hours per year. That's an absurd amount of time, and I actually double and triple checked the math (and the assumptions I poured into it). To put this into context, in an average year of 365 days (yeah, I'm not including leap years and getting an average with a fractional day tacked on) there are 8,760 hours, with approximately 5,840 of them being waking hours. 435 hours is about 7.4% of the total waking hours in a year.

As such, here's another "hidden" (because I'm not explicitly listing it) step: re-evaluate your list at this point in terms of hours per year spent watching each show. You might just be able to cross some more shows off the list, or, alternatively, you might be able to rationalize how fantastic of a time investment what you've left on your list is.