"On hold" list getting bigger and bigger

I hate leaving things half-finished, at first, there were only 2 dramas on my "on hold" list. Now, there are 18, and they are good dramas that I still want to finish but I don't know why,  when I get to a certain point in a drama, I simply temporarily lose the will to watch it and start another one. This started a few months ago, and now, out of 5 dramas, I can only finish 1 . Ugh, what do I do to stop this? While the "on hold" list grows, the watchlist grows even more with new dramas that I add there every day, instead of watching the ones that have been there for a while lol

 jenna:

I have 89 titles on my "on hold", 24 on my "dropped" and 7 on my "not interested" list. In reality, they all should be in the same graveyard category - I don't want to force myself to finish those I lost interest towards.

I used to try to finish everything I started, but now I can't be bothered anymore.  My new motto seems to be "Even a bad drama is better than a boring one". 

I guess this is the point to be reached after finishing nearly 850 dramas and having started over 1000 since 2008. You just end up dropping the ones you cannot enjoy anymore, no matter what the reason is. And that is okay.

Whooa, you watched near 850 dramas??? Finally I found someone that think the same as me, I like to finish everything I started, and someday I will finish it (with the exception of dropped titles). But if I put "on hold" it's only because I'm not in the mood to watch that at the moment, there are many super famous dramas on my "on hold" list, that I simply couldn't get excited about at that moment, for example Secretary Kim, Alchemy of Souls, Tomorrow, but these I didn't dropped, I just don't want to finish it now.

At the moment I'm watching three dramas, the second season of Fiery Priest is being released, Love Game in Eastern Fantasy is ongoing, and Melody of Golden Age which I started watching today and I'm really enjoying it, I'm in a more Cdramas vibe at the moment haha.

For me, I rarely watch multiple dramas at once.  Variety shows I on the other hand can watch multiple at once as there is no plot :D 

One reason being the fact that I usually don't start airing ones, I wait until they are completed before I start. Or nearly finished (like 1-3 episodes still left to air).  I like to marathon my dramas.

The second is that if I end up starting a new drama while waiting for the motivation to finish another one to come back, I often end up not continuing it anymore.  

So 99,9% of everything that has ended in my on-hold, dropped or not interested lists - I am never going back to those. I keep them in my currently watching list until I move them there after noticing something has been stuck for 6 months with no progress.

Life is too short to worry anymore about finishing boring ones

 jenna:

For me, I rarely watch multiple dramas at once.  Variety shows I on the other hand can watch multiple at once as there is no plot :D 

One reason being the fact that I usually don't start airing ones, I wait until they are completed before I start. Or nearly finished (like 1-3 episodes still left to air).  I like to marathon my dramas.

The second is that if I end up starting a new drama while waiting for the motivation to finish another one to come back, I often end up not continuing it anymore.  

So 99,9% of everything that has ended in my on-hold, dropped or not interested lists - I am never going back to those. I keep them in my currently watching list until I move them there after noticing something has been stuck for 6 months with no progress.

Life is too short to worry anymore about finishing boring ones

Haha I'm not so worried with my on hold list anymore thanks to you, I wasn't used to start multiple dramas and airing ones too, but i'm anxious, I can't wait finish one when I see some video or edit of a drama and I really want to start watching it soon, I can't wait to finish what I'm watching hahaha, about releases I usually wait to finish it too, but Fiery Priest is an exception, I was really looking forward to the second season, and Love Game in Eastern Fantasy is almost over too, I'll have time to finish it and binge-watch it haha

 Leeh:

I hate leaving things half-finished, at first, there were only 2 dramas on my "on hold" list. Now, there are 18, and they are good dramas that I still want to finish but I don't know why,  when I get to a certain point in a drama, I simply temporarily lose the will to watch it and start another one. This started a few months ago, and now, out of 5 dramas, I can only finish 1 . Ugh, what do I do to stop this? While the "on hold" list grows, the watchlist grows even more with new dramas that I add there every day, instead of watching the ones that have been there for a while lol

Serial procrastinator, ADHDer and mood watcher here so I'm the exact same XD Currently my On-Hold is at 15 (with some dramas being on-hold since 2022), the same number as my CW (needless to say, I'm definitely not watching 15 dramas at a time, lol).

Like everyone said before, don't feel pressured to finish everything. I used to suffer from NDD (never drop disease) but I've been making an effort to drop the dramas I just am not feeling and haven't been feeling for a while (I also drop dramas I won't watch in the near future, even if I want to watch them eventually). This is important because otherwise you're gonna finish them only because you feel like you have to and from my experience that ends up really ruining the experience and leaves a bad taste in your mouth so try not to do that xD

1. Watch in Parts - I watch a lot of minidramas which I can fairly easily binge in a couple of days but for long-form dramas I tend to watch them in either halves or thirds, depending on the length. An average Cdrama for instance, I'll watch until about ep 20 then pause for anywhere from 3-6 months and then binge finish it. Idk why but that's kinda how my brain started to behave. I noticed I lost interest halfway through (usually when they start to drag) then finished them after I had enough time to excite myself about the story again (distance makes the heart grow fonder and all). 
   • You could also maybe try to set a fixed goal for until what episode you'd watch (I've done this before but it wasn't the most fruitful). Split a drama into however many sections feels manageable and watch until that episode then stop and continue at a later point.
2. Co-Watch/Watch with Others - Recently watched a 60+ ep drama in under a month despite it being terribly boring (The Legend of Hao Lan if you're curious) only because I was watching it with someone xD Same happened with The Blue Whisper, couldn't finish Pt.2 for the life of me so I got my brother to finish it with me and it worked!
3. Join Challenges - There are lots of interesting challenges floating about MDL's forums. I find that having a place to track my progress where it feels like I'm working towards something, even something as simple as completing the challenge helps me push through and just finish the darn thing xD 
   • I'd recommend checking out the following ones: Spring Cleaning Challenge, Color Challenge, MDL Exploration Challenge, Every Genre Challenge, r/Kdrama Watch Challenge, r/Cdrama Watch Challenge, Why Not? Challenge (all kinda open, not too specific)
   • Rein has a complete list of MDL forum challenges in case you wanna check more out: [link] 
4. Keep Track and Reorganize - Maybe this won't work for you because this depends a bit on the "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" trick which would be to make a list of all the dramas you have on your On-Hold list and want to finish but not for the moment and then remove them from your O-H list. Every once in a while you can then go through the list and see if you get the itch to finish/continue any of them. You can also keep notes on why you paused them if that helps.
5. Sprinkle in Something Else™ - I stalked your watchlist a little bit and noticed you watch mostly long-form dramas. I feel like this gets tiring (to me it defs does, lol) because it kinda goes on for what feels like forever (especially if the drama drags to any capacity/is slower/etc). Maybe try sprinkling in some movies or minidramas in-between the longer ones and focus on finishing those first. This should help with giving you a sense of accomplishment and not feel like you're constantly running after 16-40 hours worth of content for the dopamine hit of completion xD
6. Out of the Comfort Zone - Since you mentioned this is more of a recent development, maybe you're in a bit of a slump. This of leaving hella dramas in On-Hold Purgatory usually happens to me when I'm watching a lot of the same. If you check my O-H and CW list, most are Cdramas, most are historical. Usually when I get like this I find something out of my comfort zone to watch and see if that doesn't reset my pallet a little bit. Check genres, tags, countries you don't often watch from and try something new to see if that doesn't help.

Sorry for the lengthy post, lol. Hope something of this helps