Turn autoplay off

The next three chapters are the method, and this one is a settings menu, which makes it the shortest and most effective chapter in the book.

Every service. Each one has the setting somewhere. Usually under playback, or account, or preferences, and it's called autoplay next episode, or play next automatically, or something close. Off. Do the one you watch most first, tonight, before the next episode.

Every device. The setting on the television may not carry to the tablet or the laptop or the phone. Check each one you watch on. Two minutes each.

The previews too. Most services also autoplay trailers when you hover over a title in the menu. That's a smaller version of the same door, and it's usually in the same settings screen. Off.

What comes back. The credits. An episode ends and the screen shows the credits and then a menu, and stays there, and nothing happens until you do something. That's the stop, restored as the default, and Johnson and Goldstein's finding is that once it's the default, it's where most people end up most nights. You'll be one of them, not because you've changed but because the door has.

Do it now, not at the weekend. Chapter 16 said why. The setting is placed where it's least likely to be changed, and the weekend is the place changes go to not happen. Two minutes, now, and the rest of the method gets easier from tonight.

If it can't be turned off. Some services on some devices don't allow it. Then the remote goes on the far side of the room before the episode starts, so that continuing costs a stand, and chapters 21 and 22 carry the weight.

Expect nothing to feel different, and then notice. The first night the credits will roll and the menu will appear and you'll sit there for a moment, and then you'll do the thing you'd have done ten years ago, which is decide. Most nights the decision will be bed. Some nights it'll be another episode, and that's fine, because it was you.