The only problem is that I am procrastinating by being on HN, and if I read about combating procrastination here then I can even fool myself into thinking I'm doing something useful.
That said, I've definitely gotten a ton of benefit from reading HN. It's a great resource for discovering new tech, startups, research, and many other things. If you find part of it beneficial, maybe you should work it into your daily plan/schedule/checklist or however you might organize the productive parts of your day. Put it after a high-friction task, something you have trouble starting. Then reading HN is like a reward for completing that high-friction task.
Then you can contribute what you learned to a blog post or comment thread on HN, thus perpetuating the community.