App Idea: Fixing Compulsive List-Making Before It Becomes Procrastination
A backlog app that only ever shows you a handful of unlocked items at a time, so you have to engage with what's in front of you before the list is allowed to grow.
How to stop overwhelming myself "on purpose" with exhaustive lists?
I have this problem I very recently recognised. Whenever I want to do something, I create an exhaustive list of things to read/do/create etc. and after doing that I don't follow up on it. For example, I'm a writer and I wanted to write a scifi-western story. I created a watchlist of around 30 movies and a reading list of around 50 novels in the genre. I watched maybe 3 movies and read none of the books. Recently I decided to try getting into philosophy again. I found about a dozen podcasts on the subject that I didn't listen to and borrowed books of philosophers that interest me: Sartre, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Fromm. Haven't read any yet. The same with politics, fantasy novels, classical literature, and writing in general. Just exhaustive lists and nothing else. One of the reasons, I think, is that I don't have the growth mindset, in school I always got high grades without studying and effort was more a sign I was bad at something. And I don't really have intrinsic motivation. So doing the lists is kind of like my mind showing me that I'll never get through it, so what's the point. Does anybody else have that problem and if so, did you manage to get through it? How?
The problem, in the searcher’s words
Every time I get into a new interest, I build a massive list first: 30 movies to watch, 50 novels to read, a dozen podcasts to queue up. Then I watch two or three things, read none of the books, and move on to the next interest where I do it all over again. It feels productive while I'm making the list, but I never actually start the work the list was supposed to prepare me for.
I don't know if this is procrastination, perfectionism, or just how my brain avoids the part where I might be bad at something. It's happened with fiction writing, philosophy, politics, classic literature — always the same pattern: research everything, do nothing. I want something that stops me from building the list before I've actually engaged with anything on it, or that forces me to finish a small piece before I'm allowed to add more.
What the thread shows
Multiple commenters recognized the exact same pattern in themselves unprompted ("That's meeeee!!", "I used to do this too", "I understand this more than I would like to"), confirming it's a shared behavior rather than one person's quirk — but every suggested fix in the thread is a manual workaround (Google Docs tabs, capping a list to 3 items by hand, a 12-week topic rotation), not an existing app.
“Whenever I want to do something, I create an exhaustive list of things to read/do/create etc. and after doing that I don't follow up on it.”
“I hoard information because it feels like I'm actually doing something without actually doing anything, if that makes sense.”
“The list is the project standing in for the work. You can't fail at a watchlist, so building it feels like progress while keeping you out of the part that's actually risky: writing a scene that might be bad.”
“Try capping yourself at 3 items before you're allowed to start, the list can grow later but you actually have to engage with it first.”
Target customer
Who
Self-directed learners and creative hobbyists — writers, autodidacts, and people restarting an old interest (philosophy, a novel, a subject they used to study) — who research obsessively before doing any actual work
Context
They hit this the moment they get excited about a new project or topic: instead of starting, they build an exhaustive prep list (movies, books, podcasts) that becomes a stand-in for the work itself and is rarely touched again
What to build
- Freeform capture of a master 'someday' backlog (books, movies, podcasts, articles, anything)
- Only 3 items visible/actionable in an 'active queue' at once; everything else stays locked in the backlog
- The only way to pull a new item into the active queue is to mark the current one done or explicitly 'no longer interested'
- A minimal daily engagement tracker (e.g. a 15-minute minimum) tied to active items only
- Time-boxed 'seasons' (4-12 weeks) for focusing on one topic before switching
- A short reflection prompt on unlock ('did you actually finish or still care about the last one?')
Build note — Could launch as a lightweight web app or even a Notion/Obsidian template before a native build; core mechanic (WIP-limited queue + unlock gate) needs no external data source, though later versions could pull from Goodreads/Letterboxd APIs for import.
Later, if it lands
Who’s already out there
Lets users track books read and maintain a 'want to read' shelf
Gap: Has no limit on list size and no mechanism forcing engagement before adding more — it's built for accumulating a backlog, not preventing one
Lets users log watched films and build watchlists
Gap: Same issue as Goodreads: the watchlist can grow indefinitely with no gate that requires finishing something before adding more
Book tracking and reading list app, often used as a Goodreads alternative
Gap: Optimized for discovery and recommendations, which encourages list growth rather than curbing it; no WIP limit or forced-engagement mechanic
Demand read
The pain is real and corroborated by several commenters, but nobody in the thread mentions paying for a tool, wanting a paid app, or describes a costly workaround — the workarounds mentioned (Google Docs, library books, YouTube playlists) are all free, so willingness to pay is unproven here.
Worth digging into before you build
2 to considerNo idea is a sure thing at this stage — these are open questions worth checking yourself, not a verdict against building it.
Generic Idea
Reading/watchlist tracking is a saturated category (Goodreads, Letterboxd, StoryGraph); the WIP-limit angle is a real differentiator but unproven against entrenched incumbents.
Weak Demand
No willingness-to-pay signals anywhere in the thread — no one mentions paying for a tool or describes a paid workaround.