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Comment by bernardino | Hacker News Reader

What helped me get down to deep work was doing away with the nonessentials, i.e. a lot of physical material things, all forms of entertainment, the internet especially, inner clutter like comparing myself to others, etc. Seneca once noted in his Moral letters to Lucilius, “Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them not because we needed them but because we had them.” I found this was applicable to nearly everything: my digital life (think Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism), my physical life (think Henry David Thoreau's Walden), my inner life (think Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet), etc. In short: Getting down to my bare self, helped me get down to deep work.

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I feel that when I eliminate forms of entertainment from my life or impose limits I can often go too far and then swing back in the other direction.

Your comment seems to indicate you manage your vices similarly. Do you also recede back into them or has this not been a problem for you?

No, I definitely resort back to entertainment every once in a while. I wouldn't go as far to call it a problem though. I suppose entertainment in low doses is fine but entertainment as the main staple of our diet is no good. In terms of deep work, I think it's important to see the side of spectrum of how entertainment only exists to stimulate a neurological response. For instance, think about always refreshing a site we are particularly fond of when we know implicitly that we should not be doing that and we should be doing something else. But hey, it's increasingly hard do so, especially now when technology is growing exponentially. There's no doubt it's difficult, we know that. It takes real mental fortitude. But this is where doing away with the nonessentials comes into play - when you do so, what's left is us, face to face with what we have to do. If anything above makes sense.

All this talk about entertainment reminds me of David Foster Wallace on Entertainment Culture: https://tonyreinke.com/2018/03/05/david-foster-wallace-on-en...

A few good bits:

> "It just, I guess my point is, right now and I think the next 15 or 20 years are going to be a very scary and sort of very exciting time when we have to sort of reevaluate our relationship to fun and pleasure and entertainment because it’s going to get so good, and so high pressure, that we’re going to have to forge some kind of attitude toward it that lets us live."

> "what it’s going to be like and what sort of resources we’re going to have to cultivate in ourselves and in our citizenry to keep from sort of dying on couches. I mean, maybe that sounds silly, but the stuff’s going to get better and better and better and better and it’s not clear to me that we, as a culture, are teaching ourselves or our children what we’re going to say “yes” and “no” to."

How would you define 'entertainment'? Is it simply something that distracts from 'work' being done? Or, time spent on something from which no 'value' can be obtained?

I personally think of entertainment as something that's enjoyable but doesn't directly advance my goals at getting better at something I prioritize. Which means entertainment is different for different people. Most people would regard movies and TV as entertainment, but for a journalist or critic, it might not be. Obviously this is on a spectrum, where binge watching TV could be pure entertainment, but playing volleyball casually would have a physical component that would add additional value, even if you're not looking to improve at volleyball.

Also want to state that I don't think entertainment is a bad thing, no one can go 100% all the time. I do think it's important to think about what we do with our time and make that choice honestly.

I once looked into reading some of DFW's books after reading some essays related to some of his ideas, but something along the way stopped me, I think it might have been that I didn't get the sense that his books and the ideas within were as directly pragmatic as the essays I'd read, but were instead far more abstract. Do you think this assessment was wrong, and if so could anyone recommend a big that doesn't use a metaphorical approach too much?

And I will also piggyback another question I had with respect to this article: does anyone know a "pro-sumer" level router that has awesome access control capabilities, so I can easily blacklist a collection of websites? I know there are some alternatives for the desktop, but I didn't find anything I liked, and I want blockage at the router level, but there's no way I'm going to get into standing up a pi-hole box or anything remotely as complicated as that.

I'm pretty sure most Netgear routers have OpenDNS interactions that you can use to block domains. At least my Nighthawk did.

Otherwise I think you can pay for an OpenDNS account.

Good thing you aren't entertained by your work, or you would certainly be a lost soul.

Did you actually stop paying for internet? It's something I've been thinking about. Were any parts surprising difficult?

No, I have not. But that's definitely something to think about. It would certainly be nice. You ever hear about how it's better to study at a library rather than at home? That's certainly a good case with work but may also be a good case with using the internet - you know, do everything we have to do internet-related elsewhere (like at a dedicated WeWork desk). Then our home is more like an actual home, I think. If that's what you were trying to get at. Otherwise, I would definitely love to hear why you have been thinking about doing so.

No, same vein. I think I would waste much less time if I had no access to Internet at home, mostly because when I'm bored or tired, instead of turning to Netflix/Youtube/Reddit/etc I'd have to find something else to entertain myself. It could turn out I'd end up finding something equally mindless, but my suspicion is I'd read more books. As you said, for when I do the internet, I could simply find a library or cafe.

What's hard for me to anticipate though is how much harder it would be to do things like shopping, or the occasional video call into a meeting.

Unfortunately doesn't work for me, as I can't unplug one of my main sources of entertainment: my brain. HN and such can be occasionally distracting, but if I'm truly procrastinating, even four blank walls will do, as I'll just space out.

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