Ask HN: Help me, I fuck around on the Internet too much | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Help me, I fuck around on the Internet too much

187 pointsvain145 comments

The internet is my industry and takes care of me well. It is also the biggest hinderance to my productivity. I lose a very large amount of time reading / watching stuff that seems interesting. While I have learnt a lot with my unquenchable thirst for things knowledgy, I am not able to meet my time goals. How do you at HN avoid this trap?

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I know the feeling, you're browsing around aimlessly, checking feeds, checking forums, etc. At some point you start getting that overwhelming feeling where you know you should be doing something productive, but it's just so easy to click one more link.

Here is the sequence I follow when I realize I've been up for 4 hours and still haven't gotten anything done yet:

- Eat something quick to prepare, if I haven't eaten yet. Watch Mixergy or something while I'm cooking/eating. This is the wind-down from "procrastination mode", and watching Mixergy reminds me that there are people out there busting their asses right now and taking all of my future customers or client dollars.

- Put on some good coding music. This puts my brain into "serious business" mode. I prefer energetic hip-hop or dubstep, something I can bop my head to and feel like a boss.

- Go through all my tabs, Pinboard and tag the ones I want to keep for later, and close all of the tabs that don't apply to what I should be working on.

- Take a post-it note and write down the 3 tasks I am going to accomplish today, come hell or high water.

- Get a coffee or energy drink, have a smoke (not recommended), and use the bathroom. Get my mental game plan together.

- Open Terminal and MacVim. This sets the stage.

- Pick a task that isn't on the post-it note (but needs to be done) that takes 10 minutes or less to bust out. Could be anything from a quick design fix to a wireframe or writing up a quick estimate. This is the warm-up.

- By this point, my brain is in full-on work mode. Jump in and tackle the work.

- Feel good. Eat dinner.

- Play Starcraft.

Setting the stage seems like an important step, I'd like a way to load up a web development environment with all the trimmings on my win7 machine.

A browser profile with it's own bookmarks/extensions, a separate virtual desktop workspace, and perhaps launch a set of other apps with windows arranged to suit my multi-screen setup.

I'm sure it can be done, but it's not simple or intuitive.

Actually, I think that's just an excuse to waste more time. It only takes a few clicks and a few keystrokes to get all your tools up and running, and I think the process of setting the stage is important, as you're telling your brain "I am getting ready to get shit done".

That is real easy and simple, install VirtualBox (or another VM flavor) and create an image just to do development in. Plus with this you get the benefit of being able to recreate it quickly, move it to other machines, and to save "snapshots".

Have any good dubstep recommendations?

Hmm, I am not an expert on dubstep, I just have a mix that a friend sent me that is mostly Dieselboy. It might be considered drum n' bass, not dubstep, but that's just what I call it because it's got that wahwahwah sound and I have no idea.

Edit: Oh yeah, I can give a shoutout to Aaron Static though, I met him through EVE Online and he comes out with great new "Power Hour" mixes every month: http://aaronstatic.com/

>that wahwahwah sound

That's a good way to describe it, I know exactly what you're talking about haha.

That's the wobble bass.

I'm a big fan of programming to http://jungletrain.net/

You will enjoy this:

http://dubstepfriday.com/

check this out: http://radio.rinse.fm/

I recently discovered dubstep and think it's great work music as well. I would recommend checking out iTunes and Pandora to start finding artists you like, some of my favorite stations are Defiant radio on iTunes and Destroyer.net.

I enjoy my Ratatat station on Pandora. It has very few vocals to distract me. They are just a torrent of noise without much I only play it when I'm working so my brain knows what time it is.

If you listen to metal, I would recommend Machine Head and Lamb of God as two excellent band for "work mode".

Although this statement isn't very contributive to the topic at hand, Ratatat is awesome. Seventeen Years and the songs from LP4 are their best stuff.

It is actually really good music to do work to, the kind of music that's best listened to when you need to focus and are just kind of tired.

Although not dubstep I really like Soma.fm, especially Mission Control. I'd recommend Hype Machine for finding new artists. I've really been digging Boadecia by Mason which I found on Hype Machine.

I did not get the appeal until I got addicted to this incredible mix: http://soundcloud.com/erwtenpeller/war-of-the-worlds

http://soundcloud.com/itshooky

I also recommend using a program like Self Control[1] to blacklist distracting websites for really bad cases where you're not consciously opening a distracting website because it has become muscle memory.

In addition to using Self Control, I also like to run a small local web server to display a page like http://phylab.mtu.edu/~nckelley/Focus/ whenever I try to visit a distracting website.

I plan on experimenting with some negative reinforcement by building an Arduino device that shocks me whenever I visit a distracting website when I should be working :D.

[1]

Mac: http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/

Linux: http://svn.jklmnop.net/projects/SelfControl.html

...isn't this all covered by /etc/hosts ? Seems like reinventing the wheel..

Self Control has a timer.

Self control also makes more modifications to your computer than just modifying /etc/hosts, which in turn makes it a lot harder for me to disable than just commenting out the lines in the hosts file, which I could rationalize myself into doing.

I use Self Control from time to time, too, but I wonder if you've experienced the same problem that I have: namely, that some sites which you haven't blacklisted stop functioning, too. For example, often when I block HN, reddit, and MacRumors, and then visit apple.com, none of the images on apple.com will load. Random other sites that apparently have nothing to do with my block list are often blocked altogether.

Last time I had this problem, I took a look at my Mac's firewall rules, using ipfw, and discovered that several of the IP addresses used in the block list belonged to popular CDNs (e.g., Akamai). This could explain why static assets (like images) on unblocked sites don't load, but I haven't gotten to the bottom of the other issues.

I think, in my case, anyway, a simple /etc/hosts solution would probably work better than Self Control. Anyone know of one, something more elegant than hacking the file by hand?

I use one called "stayfocusd".

It's a chrome plugin that allows me block certain sites. I usually give myself about 10 minutes/day on all of my favorite news sites (including HN).

Got to love that "Shouldn't you be working?" black out page, means more work will be done in those hours. That said I found ways to circumvate the black out page and stepping away from the screen with a notebook and pen in hand is really key to productivity for me.

Steve Lambert, author of SelfControl, was our resident artist at our Highschool. Awesome guy :)

As for the post-it/to-do lists, what helps me is to develop a point system (scale of 0~5 or whatever) and assign a point next to a criterion at the end of the day, depending on how well you think the task was accomplished. It works even better if the tasks are something that's repeated weekly (e.g. organisation of your living space), as you'll end up with a collection of points.

While easy and non time-consuming, it's powerful in a way that it creates a feedback process. Of course, there's bunch of different reward systems people use besides scoring high points, like earning oneself a cigar, for example. So you can develop one that suits you for more fun.

Great post, this mirrors almost exactly my prep for getting down to work. Smoking (not recommended) definitely helps my focus but if you're using caffeine and smoking remember that nicotine catalyzes the break down of caffiene meaning you'll need to consume more frequently. Also, recommend instead of coffee, tea which contains L-Theanine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine which also helps with focus and cognition.

I think also there is a balance to be had with browsing, often times I'll use ideas or projects I've heard of by looking through HN and other sites. If you factor in how much code you'd have to write if you didn't know about this project I think that a moderate amount of browsing improves productivity.

You can go running or whatever, get back to work and be focus as well. smoking is not necessary to be productive. For the record, I know what I'm talking about because I used to smoke for several years and I quitted like a year ago.

Yeah, I am working on transitioning to running, smoking is not my long term plan for productivity enhancement.

Love the dubstep suggestion. I too do my best coding when I feel like a boss

My solution has been this: don't take crappy breaks, take real ones. Your brain can only focus for so long, it's normal that it needs a break, so naturally you drift over to the web. However this is not a great break and doesn't really refresh you. When I'm working on a project and find myself browsing HN for to long, I just get up and go outside, go for a walk, take a shower (I work from home), take a quick nap, even read a book or something similar. In all of these cases I a.) actually feel refreshed when I'm done, b.) usually spend over all less time distracted, and most importantly c.) gain insight into the problem I'm trying to solve by ignoring it.

Many offices cultures require that you 'look busy' and web browsing is a crappy form of relaxation that unfortunately fits in with this well. If you give your brain moments to actually relax you'll get more done with in far less time. Web browsing when you really need a break is roughly the same thing is snacking on junk food when you really need a wholesome meal.

edit: One key thing I only implied is: leave the space your in. So for example playing a round of video games on the same machine your working on won't work, but (if you can avoid playing all afternoon) going another room to play xbox for 30mins probably will work.

That is a key point: if you work from home, taking a shower and getting dressed is a key part of telling yourself "I'm not in wake-up mode, I'm in getting shit done mode".

Those two really do it for me.

I also put shoes on when I work at home. I have a pair that's just for indoors.

The "Mr. Rogers" approach, I like it :)

I couldn't even get started in the morning without taking a shower.

Is is very important to change your whole context regularly. This means: go out (this is where we come from), take a walk. This will give you back the necessary energy you need in your modern workplace.

A significant and recurring step for myself has been recognizing that in my scramble to consume everything that seemed interesting I was trying to hoard something that's in rampant abundance.

You will never have enough time to dick around on the Internet, because there will always be new things that seem interesting. The most interesting thing in the world will be the thing you mark "Read Later" in the moments before you die. It never ends. You will.

What you've got to recognize in this is that "Does this seem interesting?" is not a good heuristic for reading / watching / listening / doing. It's the natural and intuitive one we're all equipped with, but it fails in a world of abundance. To get out of the trap you've got to internalize a rule more like "Do I need this for something?" or "Can I safely ignore this?" or "Am I going to act on this?"

Try it with the tabs you've got open right now and see how you feel.

Amazing point. Unlike an above commenter, I often spend more time on a site like HN because so much more of the content seems "interesting". However, this isn't the right metric, and you are spot on with that.

Another angle to see that the new "interesting stuff" pile is effectively unlimited is to look at where you go when you have some minutes to spend on interesting stuff. If you are often needing to go back to that "Read Later" pile to find anything interesting enough to read, well, then maybe there isn't much new stuff coming in that you are interested in.

But me, I very rarely have to go back into that "Read Later" pile to use free minutes of brain-time. If none of the aggregators have anything of merit, a couple of searches related to "the topic I'm into at the moment" gets more than I could read in a week. This empirical fact is something I try to use to slow the rate of additions to my "Read Later" queue.

Really it's like watching T.V. except it's the internet. Brainless activities which keeps us just enough entertained that we don't go watch T.V. instead. ;)

It's also procrastination from doing the things you really need to be doing. So, check out the tips on dealing with procrastination.

I think what works best for me is to realize that I'm aimlessly wandering and just get up from the computer and do something else. Bonus points for getting out of the house. When I come back, if I fall into the same trap, then rinse and repeat.

Another trick is to simply do something productive on the computer for just 15 minutes. Set a timer and go. Once you get to that first 15 then usually that's all you need to keep going long enough to call it a day so that you can waste your time without feeling guilty that you didn't do anything. ;)

> Really it's like watching T.V. except it's the internet.

Except we don't work on our TVs. In fact, in web development, I do 'real work' in the same application I 'waste real time' (the browser).

Seth Godin had an interesting take on that problem...

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/are-you-maki...

It's all self-discipline. Like a diet, you could eat cake an ice cream every meal, but you'd become fat. You need the self-discipline to limit yourself on the Internet to remain productive.

Another way to lOok at it, depending on what motivates you ... Think in terms of "is mark zuckerberg wasting hours on these stupid forums every day?"

Self discipline is key. No tool can really prevent you from goofing off. Things can help, but it all boils down to you.

One thing that helps me: focus on the good feeling when you accomplish something and think about how you're going to get there.

Also I have a framed picture of this - http://www.someecards.com/workplace-cards/when-work-feels-ov...

terrible message of that picture, completely wrong way of motivating yourself to accomplish something positive in life.

Yeah, the most important thing is not to fall into the trap of saying "Fuck it, today is a wash. I'll do it tomorrow."

No. Today is not a wash. You're going to stay up late and get the work done as punishment, until you learn your lesson.

When you're actually wasted and don't get anything done because of it, staying up late and trying to get work done will not fix it.

In those cases, it's pretty much the opposite. Stop procrastinating and get a nap or some real sleep. Of course, most places reward busywork more than napping, but if you can determine it yourself, you should value productivity over looking productive.

One positive effect of the stay-up-late-until-you-get-it-done part is that it will make you not care and implement the simple solution that you thought wouldn't work. (In many cases, it actually does).

or you will remember your grandfather (or something like that) who woke up everyday extremely early to go to work at the fields, do the same and get things done.

Emperically that doesn't work - if it did, thousands of college students would not be so late with assignments.

Just to be a contrarian... don't feel so bad. You're in good company.

"Perhaps fifteen of his [Leonardo da Vinci's] paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.(" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci (emphasis mine)

"One of the problems I've faced throughout life is that I'm kind of lazy, or maybe I lack will power or discipline or something."

- Paul Bucheit (http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2011/02/two-paths-to-succes...)

(I've quoted that before, but it seems appropriate again here)

What's more, I used to be hard on myself for doing this until I realized my best work came out of something I saw in a 'distraction' session.

e.g. I wouldn't have discovered Isotope if I wasn't surfing HN. Then, something I made with Isotope was far better than something I would have been working on at another time.

Sometimes, delaying work leads to better outcomes. That's why it's so hard to know when to work ;)

Not to forget about pg himself:

http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html

I've seen a few folks implement the following system (with varying degrees of success):

- Start a Virtual Machine

- Migrate all your IM, Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, HN, etc. to the VM

- When you want to focus/work, shut down the VM

I do something similar with an iPad. I don't check email, Twitter, RSS, or read web pages on my laptop anymore. I've migrated all that to the iPad.

Asking this on HN is not unlike asking in a drugs den how to quit crack-cocaine

Buy an iPad.

Clear your computer's history/cookies, and never use it for distracting/unproductive sites again. Use the iPad exclusively for your unproductive browsing going forward (preferably in a different physical location).

You will be amazed at how quickly it pays for itself (and the browsing experience is better too).

This actually works very well. I don't have an ipad yet, but I do the same thing with my iPhone. In addition to that I also have leechblock(found it in lifehacker) that blocks 3hrs block of time with breaks in between. 8-11, 1-4, 6:30-10:30 and midnight-4am. This way I can't "accidentally" browse HN or other news site during my supposedly productive hours. If I really need a fix, I just browse in my iPhone and away from my computer. It's easier to stop browsing on my iPhone than on my computer.

Email is not unproductive. Just need to have a discipli e here. I can't aford shuting down the mail client from my laptop. I often need to respond to clients all day long. As i've been so responsive to clients all those year (i usualy respond quickly to my clients emquiriea) that's mean now if i dont respond to an email for say 4 hours....

Email isn't something that has ever been a productivity drain for me, so I haven't considered it much either way (iPad or desktop).

Definitely, I wouldn't recommend ignoring your clients. If most email is a productivity problem for you, but you need to respond to client emails, most email clients will allow you to define special alerts for certain senders as part of email processing rules.

Get back to work!

I don't really consider myself an expert on getting things done, but I will suggest one thing. Take a day off every week. A day off the internet, a day off anything with a screen, and a day off anything which is about paid work. When you sit at your computer and think "maybe just a few more rage comics[1]" you're actually feeling a bit uninspired. sitting and staring at your computer is the worst way to achieve inspiration. instead, do the housework, bake, take up a hardware project, knit, read, do a correspondence course. anything that is unimportant to your day job, and pleasant, and nothing to do with those computerboxes.

When my day off is over I go back to my myriad projects and sit down and actually do them. It's much much much more productive than trying to work all the time. I actually suspect this is one of the major advantages of the sabbath in Abrahamic religions.

Oh, and use bookmarks. The blogosphere is much easier to forget about when you know you can find all the good stuff at a later date.

Like I say I'm no expert, but this helps me. I find that when I try to break the trend and work all week my mind quickly devolves into that of a dullard drone.

Best of luck breaking that habit!

[1] don't judge me :(

Tune your internal filter more strictly. Three categories:

1. Signal.

If you're honest with yourself, no more than 10% of most social news will be signal for you, signal being defined as something that directly helps you improve your work. That 10% is different for different people doing different things, though. Read, bookmark, or pinboard the signal.

2. Useful to be aware of, not directly applicable.

Industry gossip & news, scan the headline and first paragraph so you're not totally ignorant about it at cocktail parties, then move on, don't dwell on it. This is different for different folks, depending on what you do. What's #2 for some is noise for others, and vice versa.

3. Noise.

Around half of social media. Infoporn, Entreporn, whatever. Not applicable to you, won't help to know about it at the expense of actually doing or making something yourself. Suppress your Pavlovian instincts and ignore it.

You could even take this a step further and just cut out #2 and #3 altogether. But if you do that you can also cut out #1 (social media entirely) and rely purely on search engines to find you stuff you need when you need it. Extreme, but there you go.

The only problem with cutting out #2 and #3 completely is that you don't always know what information will be useful to you.

True you'll lose some signal along with #2 and #3, but gain a lot of time. You have to recognize the tradeoffs and then decide which is more valuable to you.

-wake up -wash face and brush teeth. -I set up my dev/work environment (terminal, textmate, browser on localhost, skype, etc) make sure that when I sit on my desk I don't need to do anything but work. I even make sure that I'm on the right git branch and check my status, check my tasks for the day and have the code I'm gonna work on up on the screen. Although I'm still a little sleepy (I need my coffee), I push through to get setup. -Check my emails while in the bathroom -make coffee/breakfast -read HN or other news stuff while I eat. by now, my environment is setup, my emails are checked, my news are in, my bowels are moved, my stomach ain't empty and I'm ready to hack away.

During lunch, I might check news/HN again, facebook for a sec, etc.

Why:

0. Not enough knowledge and/or lying to yourself

1. Subliminally trying to flee from taks, because you know it's going to take so much time again.

2. Trying to do something which gives you short term success by posting/chatting/helping etc.

How:

0. turnoff sound and your monitor!

1. read a programming book (offline) related to your project! yes do it some hours and have a tea/coffee

2. create a todo (offline) / (digitalize it much later)

3. Analyse your project and start coding now.

What:

0. I waste a very large amount of time for ("fun")

1. unquenchable thirst for things knowledgy

2. Not able to meet my time goals

3. Feeling lazy

Hope it helps

http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

I'm not sure where I first heard about this, but it has drastically improved my productivity. It doesn't do much to get me started, but it keeps me from leaving my workflow once I'm already there. The short breaks keep me from getting too drained, but I'm always back on time and working again. I love being a slave to my timer.

I usually use http://tomatoi.st/ to keep track, but there are a bunch of other apps to help you out.

Thanks, this looks like a good tool! I'll be trying this out the coming weeks :)

As much as he's reviled on this site, Tim Ferris's suggestion (likely borrowed from someone else) has been a great tip. Each day, lay out 3 concrete items to get done. Then do them without interruption. You'll most likely be done with them by lunch. Then you can do pterosaur things the rest of the day. Surf if you're stuck in an office, go to the park if you work from home. By setting put concrete things and going about getting them done, you do them much faster than if you leave them nebulous with an indefinite time frame.

I had similar problem, for quite long time, and probably I still do from time to time.

What really worked for me was to schedule time offs when I simply don't do certain tasks online. It took some time to implement that and my mind was playing tricks with me all the time.

I decided that my mornings, until 9:00 and evenings, after 19:00 are offline times and I would only use internet in the case of emergency or if some project has to be finished on time.

I was trying to quit reading news completely but than I realized that considering that I'm running online business I can't really do that, I have to be on top of the things to make sure that our services are always up to date.

I limited my reading activities only on few sources, Tech Crunch, Hacker News, Twitter (following max 50 people) and Facebook (also max 50 people). I give myself only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening to go through my sources and to respond in some cases.

This was not easy to achieve, it's one kind of addiction and I even wrote a post about it few days ago, "How to deal with mental obesity" http://www.oceen.com/2011/04/01/podcast-information-overload...

Information overload is serious stuff but majority of people are still not aware of that. It's going to become one of the biggest problems in next decade and only way to fight it is to discipline yourself in same way as you discipline yourself with food.

i have tried that, but most days, HN or the very few sources just expand to occupy all my time. I agree with you about it being a very serious problem. In terms of health, two things already very evident are weight gain and eye lubricating drops.

I know, it's very tricky thing. As I said, it took me years to put some discipline into it and still I feel I use computer too much. My goal is to build business to that level that I work only 30-60 min on computer every day.

My biggest weakness is too many tabs. I tend to have 200+ tabs open in Chrome stuffed with my primary procrastination implement: must-read technology news. If I start picking through them to close/mark for later reading, I inevitably start reading and simply reboot the procrastination cycle.

My best antidote: have your IDE ready to work and close all your browser tabs at once.

P.S. You know you read too much Hacker News when you wake up from a dream in which PG rejected both your startup ideas for funding.

Most of the posts here focus on not doing the stuff you shouldn't be doing, but I've found it's much more effective on doing the things you should. The biggest help I've found was:

Break down your productive tasks into smaller ones that can be accomplished in an hour or two of concentrated work.

The big reason I procrastinate is because my real projects seem unmanageable. They're big, or they're scary, or they'll just take too much time to be worth investing in now. The solution to that is to make them smaller, less scary, and easily completed with the time you have now. That means doing more of them, but at least you'll be able to make forward progress.

I took on a 20% project at work with the express goal of teaching myself how to break down a large, self-motivated project into one that I can actually motivate myself to complete. It's a library that'll probably be 10-15k lines of code when completed, based on similar projects. Most commits are no larger than 200 lines of code. I can bang out 200 lines of code in an afternoon; that makes each individual piece seem quite reasonable.

- Try to only create and care. If I am not creating nor caring then it's probably a waste of time (create = code, draw, make music, solder etc... care = do yoga, train, clean the house, repair stuff around the house, garden, water the plants, cook food etc...)

- klip.me to read page later on my kindle (any page that has a lot of text I send it to my kindle so I can walk away from my computer once in a while to read about other stuff I want to do)

- 2 screen computer - one for watching stuff (video,web stuff) one for working, creating,producing

- Being clear and telling myself : It's been 30minutes that you check facebook photo aimlessly anything else you can do ?

- Do the dishes, clean the house, have so non computer task that needs to be done when too much procrastination happen

- Not feeling bad or guilty as it ends up making me wanting to do more aimless browsing

- Have a precise goal and passion in my life ;) If I am confuse about these I make mind map to see where I am at !

Tabbed browsing is both a blessing and a curse. I found that I stopped wasting quite so much time surfing when I derived as much satisfaction from having only a few (mostly necessary) tabs open at any one time as I did from, say, cleaning the apartment or going for a walk. It was mainly a matter of rewiring where I get my sense of reward from, and acknowledging that the vast bulk of the stuff I read on the web just went right in one ear and out the other helped a lot. It's very sobering to tally up the number of hours a week you spend reading stuff you mostly won't remember by the end of said week - try it some time, it helped me a lot.

You're struggling with some kind of internal conflict about how to use your time. Sometimes you can power through that sort of thing by just telling yourself you HAVE to get going, or with technical measures like Leechblock. But those approaches are unsustainable, because they don't address the fundamental conflict. How do you feel when you're browsing frivolous material? How do you feel when you consider starting to work? How do you feel just before the urge to take a break arises? Get clear on these questions, and you will be clearer about the way forward.

You are not alone. Read this: http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/conceding-defeat-the-intern...

Make a contract with yourself. Set the times of the day when you shouldn't be screwing around on the internet. Get a program that takes screenshots of what is on your monitor every ten minutes or so. At the end of the day use those screenshots to estimate how much you spent screwing around on the internet inside "work time". For each hour spent, donate $10 (or more) to a hated poltical candiate's run for president. For example, Sarah Palin for President 2012.

If you are giving Sarah more than $100 each week, I think you should seek advice from a professional.

How come no one has mentioned the Pomodoro Technique? I started using it about a month ago, and I can tell you it's been my most productive month ever. I use the Pomodoro for Mac app to keep track of time. They recommend 25 minutes work blocks, with 5 minutes in between and 10 minutes every 4 blocks.

I found out that I prefer 40 minute blocks, with 5 minutes breaks, and then 20 minutes every four blocks to disconnect from everything and relax.

I second the pomodoro technique, but advise against lengthening the time block. I find the original 25-minutes block to be non-threatening, which is very useful in fighting procrastination. After all you can dive into a problem for 25 minutes, it will not compromise too much your reassuring flow of junk fun. (then, once you have started working, it's much easier to keep it going).

This is a classic procrastination story, but also a side effect of the 40-hour work-week. Would you still spend so much time surfing if you could go home when your work was done? Killing time eats into your free time, affects the quality of your work, and makes you feel lazy at the end of the day. The problem is not that you're reading all these articles; it's that you're reading them at the cost of your productivity. You'll enjoy this activity much more if you can do it after you know your day's work is done.

We're building LazyMeter to help with procrastination and overwhelming to-do lists. LazyMeter filters each user's overwhelming to-do list into a today list, so that they have an achievable goal each day, with an end point, and then tracks their progress so you can see how much they've done. Our users know exactly what they need to focus on, and can recognize when they're killing time. As a result, they know what to do, they know when they're done, and they feel better at the end of the day. We're now in beta and would love to get your feedback. http://www.LazyMeter.com

This sounds like a fantastic idea.

My standard reply when questions like this come up: If you can't stay focused, you may have an unrecognized health issue contributing to the problem. I have a really serious health issue and while very ill I fucked around a whole heckuva lot on the internet/computer. The healthier I get, the less I do the aimless futzing around type stuff. But, to this day, I wipe my computer/keyboard down (both at work and at home) before getting on it. I react pretty badly to dust and stuff. An unclean keyboard/work area can put me in a fog and make it impossible to stay focused.

Like others here have said: Eating right, controlling my blood sugar, and so on also contribute to my ability to remain focused. When my mind starts wandering at work, I get up, go to the restroom, and get a new drink and/or snack. Then I am usually good for another hour or two. (If your health issues are less serious than mine, I assume you probably won't need such frequent intervention.)

Here's four of my productivity hacks. The rest is actually quite similar to what jarin has said.

- The Pomodoro technique. I use Vitamin-R (great app for OS X)

- Immidiately when I see something that looks interesting but I really shouldn't be reading I send it to Instapaper. Each day I get the new stories from Instapaper automatically sent to my Kindle for bedtime reading. If you don't have a Kindle, get one!

- If it's a video, comments or something that's not really readable on the Kindle, I send it to pinboard.in

- When you eat breakfast, prepare a thermos of green tea for consumption through the day. It doesn't sound like it would be different from drinking coffee or energy drinks, but drinking green tea actually gives you a different type of energy. Instead of the energy rush energy drinks and coffee gives you, you get a more long lasting and natural feeling type of energy. It tastes good and is really healthy too.

Here are some steps I've taken - built http://rssafter5.appspot.com, and set up my email to oly download once every 4 hours, http://kburke.org/kevin/escaping-from-your-email/

- Unsubscribe from all the feeds except that are very very important for you. So you have at the max 20-25 feeds to read.

- Follow only those people who's tweets are very important. Don't follow people who have a habit of tweeting very 15 mins.

- Deactivate your facebook account.

- Go to any social site only when you are going to bed. Don't spend more than 30 mins there.

I have actually deactivated my facebook account.

There's too much info on the web, there's no point in reading / listening to all that if you can't apply or digest. If something is very important, you will eventually get to know about it from somewhere.

You don't always have to be the first one to know about it.

When tired, don't try to relax by visiting blogs, twitter, facebook, youtube. Instead go out for 10 - 15 mins and get fresh air, make coffee.

It helps me alot. Might work for you. I have been thru the same phase your are going thru :)

Well, i didn't realize how much i was wasting on reading online(even though i had an idea) Then came across rescuetime got it installed and looking at the amount of time spent reading forced me to change a lot...now am a lot better. but still get into binges of old habits...

I understand the feeling. It can feel like that you'll be ignorant or less informed unless you click that next link. Keeping up with the Internet could be a full-time job.

When I get on my computer to get some work done, I usually jot down some things on a notepad or in vi about what I want to get done. When I do this, I usually get right into it the tasks at hand.

If I find myself wandering and realize it, I usually close my laptop or get up and walk around.

It's funny to see this because I've been reading HN for at least 2 hrs, and I realized a few minutes ago that I should have been doing other things.

If you use GNOME, there is a timer applet that will flash a notification message when the time runs out. I think I'm going to try timing things as I do them so I get flashed when I should be off.

I'm worse, I come here dozens of times a day, seeking new stuff done by folks smarter than myself, and later blame myself about the time I spent online, and how much more I would have won if I had instead read a book on programming languages for the last few hours.

Find some middling distractions that stop you from worse distractions. I find trance music stops me from looking around, hearing and thinking about odd noises without taking any of my attention, and also lifting my mood (uplifting trance podcasts like Lee Harris).

Control your blood sugar. This mostly means a good snack of at the very least, a piece of wholemeal toast, every 3-4 hours. No sugar, and probably no caffeine.

Find the limit to your want to do something else. I can binge on Wikipedia, but then I get bored and save all the pages I have open for another time. Keep doing this and the binges will get shorter in time, in about six months I got them down from two hours to 20 minutes.

I haven't personally done this, but here goes!

- Make a list of websites you want to explore before doing work and give them a video/article count per website. - At the end of the list add a video or article to read that pertains to your actual work/task that you wish to accomplish. Hopefully, after you read/watch this, you're more motivated to work or at the very least, you realize that you need to get cracking at it. - Crawl into your 'Cave'. And I mean bury yourself! Block the outside world, listen to music that has no words (that you can understand), dim the room and have a spotlight upon your desk, get a pitcher of water and a pack of Depends. Whatever it takes!

Hope that helped a bit.

Good luck!

Alt text on http://xkcd.com/862/ :

"After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished--and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected."

Implemented in node.js: https://gist.github.com/845591 (by kuroikaze85)

Stop visiting HN so much.

I recently started a routine of only visiting HN once per week - and only on the weekend. I use the 100 point threshold version to gather up all of the interesting articles I missed throughout the week.

http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100

I scan through the listing and throw anything I'm interested in reading into Instapaper. Now I'm stocked on great content to last me through the next week.

I'm finding that I'm a lot more focused now that my mind is not being tossed around constantly by whatever the trending topics-of-the-day might be. I'm now driven more to create than to consume.

Every time I need to get shit done, I go out and buy a pack of Redbull and drink it. I always thought it's the Redbull that keeps me awake, turn out it's just to set the mood so that I can get shit done.

Just bought another pack 2 mins ago.

It's probably a combination. Mood (mental state) is critical for me. Lists and timers can work well in the right state. Otherwise they just add more layers to procrastinate with.

I've been drinking Engage energy drink. Aside from caffeine, it's got 5-HTP and a bunch of other mood enhancing stuff. Seems to work pretty nicely.

But don't abuse it. Rest when you must.

If you are not meeting your goals, it could indicate they are unrealistic or not clear. Most of the tasks you do might be mundane, but they are necessary. The satisfaction from completing a list of tasks will drive you.

I have a method, which I find it extremely effective:

- At end of day, spend 30-45 minutes reviewing it, following up with people, and planning next day (already have a list of tasks saved). If I feel I need to improve in some areas (for example, presenting), I will create tasks from it (research presentation classes, book presentation class etc.)

- Each morning, spend 30-45 minutes entering tasks into my calendar so I know what I need to achieve for the day. Each task has a time period assigned to it. Make sure tasks don't overlap - pad the time

- Check emails every 45 minutes or so. Delete, defer, delegate or action (loosely based on David Allen's GTD)

- For new projects, break down into small parts and turn these into tasks. Some tasks might seem trivial, but that's okay

- Set-up two monitors. One has a task app open, so if something comes up (let's say by email), I can create a task out of it. Inbox is always visible. On my other monitor I have everything I need for the task at hand. If you don't need your browser open to complete the task, close it

- Reward myself for completing all tasks for the day

Other tips:

- Read about how people become great at something - focusing on the task itself is paramount. If you fail, gather feedback, make adjustments and do it again and again and again and again

- Burnout is very real. A particular industry might have a culture of late nights and 60-hour weeks, but humans are not designed for this. Burnout kills relationships. Stick to a reasonable work day and devote time to other activities, for example playing sport in a social setting, and most importantly spending time with those you care about

- Create a personal skills document, where you list out what you want to learn about/become skilled at. You can then create tasks and set a clear path for success. That way, you can let the goal drive your search for information instead of aimless browsing driving your goals

This might be unconventional, but it's the only thing that worked for me:

Exercise, but not out of duty. Use it to pump up your state and get endorphins flowing. Weight lifting works well, but pushups, squats and other body weight exercises are fine. Air boxing works really well for me. Running is ok but I haven't found it to be as effective.

End your shower each day with 3-5 minutes of cold water. While you're in it, fight to keep control of yourself. Stay resilient.

Basically force yourself to overcome trials everyday, and use that to get yourself into "Beast Mode." Once there, concentrating usually comes naturally.

Stop fucking around.

I know how it feel. We all at some point loose control while browsing. It often start with a good intention: "let't have a quick look at the HN homepage" and several hours later you're still here reading news, success story. This is even more frustracting at the end of the day as you lookback and notice nothing in your priority have move in the rigth direction. I'm now more productive since i'm applying the GTD method it help me keeps control. I suggest you to read "making it all work".

I got a space at a startup lab/incubator. Only been there a week, but I've noticed that I get distracted a lot less when other people are around. Ironically, I am there especially for the social atmosphere because working from home can drive you nuts. But even with the social time, I am more productive because doing all those things like reading non-useful things, videos, games, etc just don't seem appropriate around others. Hoping this works for me, maybe it will help you too.

What has helped me is a well filled task list. I use pivotal tracker more or less as a task list and for some scope control, even though I work alone. I guess every form of task list will do the job, however.

The important thing is that there is some sort of backlog. That serves two purposes: I feel more motivated to get started when I see all the work which needs to get done as concrete steps. And I can pick a simple or complex task whichever fits my work mode best at the time.

Try the Google Chrome extension StayFocusd. Its essentially a website timer that blocks time-wasting websites after a predetermined amount of time has expired. Good luck..

Seconded big time. Really saved me. And it has enough options where I don't have to fight with it a lot.

I actually find "aimlessly" browsing the web less of a time sink than going to the few websites that truly suck me in.

Lately, I've been using an egg timer to stop working every twenty minutes and stretch. This has the side effect of forcing me to also consider whether the last twenty minutes were productive. That I'm here shows it's not perfect but I do think it has helped (both keeping my body more active and my computer activities more productive).

my first impulse was - let me rush out and buy an eggtimer. i had to tell myself to relax, experiment with this idea. i am now arguing that if i had that much self discipline in the first place, it would not be a problem in the first place! So tell me, how long have you done this? how effective has it been? do you cheat a lot?

    $ while true; do sleep 20m; xmessage 'stretch' &; done

I cheat a lot but it still helps - when I notice the timer isn't set, I set the time and stretch, this evens-out the times I just unthinkingly reset the timer.

I don't believe there is such a thing as generic willpower. A person has far more ability to do something when are reminded to do it.

And I've experimented with timers in the computer and I've found they don't work as well. The egg-timer gives me a full "UI" without consuming desktop space - I can stretch early and reset the timer easily without, say, returning to the machine itself. There's no conflict with system sounds, etc.. A thing outside the computer is more suited to getting me ... outside the computer.

And egg timers/kitchen timers are pretty cheap - if it doesn't work, you use it to time your eggs...

Admit to yourself that you have an internet addiction. Come to terms with it.

I had a major issue a few months ago, until I realized I truly was addicted. After that I started cutting things out, and now I spend less than 30 minutes a day online, and I don't miss a thing. Actually, my mind is much clearer.

You won't be able to get depth in your thoughts if you keep feeding yourself bits of useless info.

Ok, now I am stopping reading TechCrunch, HN etc. Back to http://localhost:3000

Lots of good commments here. I find the LeechBlock Firefox extension a helpful tool: very configurable. You can block certain sites at different times, or allow yourself a given amount of time on a site per day.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/

1) Maintain a long list of large issues you need to resolve.

2) Regularly take a few of those items off the list and resolve to do them in a given g session.

3) When not working, take a real break. Do something else.

4) Exercise regularly. This is so massively critical for me that I can't overstate it. Regular exercise aids in focus, sleep and maintaining a positive mental attitude.

I got an app for time tracking and I track everything. Eating, watching videos, browsing, sleeping, and the occasional working. It's awesome because when I looked back at the pie chart for the day and see three quarters of it is sleeping and browsing, I felt like a complete doofus.

(I use aTimeLogger, it's free and does everything I need)

Nobody mentioned the Leechblock Firefox plugin yet. Of course it only helps you by blocking chosen sites after a predefined spent time (highly configurable), it won't solve your problem for you.

But at least it gives you the "trigger" by bringing your attention to the fact you've already spent your alotted time goofing off.

Block the sites that you waste too much time on.

I have a habit of loading news/discussion sites anytime I'm waiting for something to complete. Blocking the sites I use too much such as HN, Reddit, Craigslist etc. breaks my streaks of going to them, disrupting the habit. The 'site not available' message helps me refocus.

I use Toggl (http://www.toggl.com/) to track where I'm spending my time - when I pull up HN to read it, I swap to timing that. Somehow, having a timer logging how much time I spend on non-productive work helps keep me focused.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Doctor: Then stop doing it!

I used Windows Live Family Safety to block all non-work related sites. Someone else controls the filter. It blocked my Internet addiction, but I found other ways to waste time.

Productivity on desktop machine, browsing on the tablet/laptop. Pinboard/ReadItLater anything that looks like a timesink and catch up when away from the desk.

It's pretty simple how to fix it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE

Don't forget HN's "noprocrast" setting. I bet it's often overlooked but I found it invaluable in breaking the habit of "cmd-t news.yco..."-ing.

I am using Stickies to write down my to-do. I have them on my desktop at all time. This way I know what to do at what time.

A must have:

http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/

At my age I don't have the agility to fuck around too much anymore. I can spend a full day on HN.

http://www.mindfulbrowsing.com

I start a project with other people so I am accountable to someone other than myself.

My router allows me to blacklist sites during working hours.

Smoke less weed.

Just like reading this article right now...

I've started remedying this for myself.

What I did: Told myself not to go to Fark, Reddit, 4chan, or any adult websites. Slashdot, Drudgereport, and Hacker News were allowed for personal reasons (they have interesting content and news while filtering out a lot of low-value stuff. I also spend less time at the latter sites than the former). Results:

-Movies. I watched a few movies and TV shows. Doing this helped my mind relax, because information overload DOES happen.

-Programming: I got back into Scala, and have an idea for a fun project I want to start working on. For me, programming is a mental exercise and is my outlet for creativity.

-People: When I don't have long hours at work (IT, surprise), I hang out with friends more. This can quickly drain funds, though, so watch your spending.

-Sex: Abstaining from adult material on the web for a few days makes you more ready for a mate, if there's one available.

-Less distraction: No matter what I list above, they were all things I devoted all my attention to while I was doing it (especially the last one). Browsing tons of sites on the net for hours on end kills your focus on specific tasks (like having a life, or truly excelling at a task).

Basically, interesting stuff on the Internet is like fats and oils on the old food pyramid: delicious, and necessary in small amounts.

FOR YOU: Don't cut out every gluttonous activity you have. Start with the top two or three time-wasters, and start from there. Don't let yourself go to it at all. Cold turkey. Find other things to do when you get bored looking for articles.

127.0.0.1 Reddit reddit.com

127.0.0.1 techcrunch.com techcrunch

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 fark.com

etc....

How did you see this post with those host settings?

I've done this temporarily before with a simple hostfile swap script that I run when I've got something serious to do.

How about having your hostfile swap script change your IM status to something like "Goofing off online." (or whatever)? Nothing like the shame of broadcasting that to your coworkers to get you to keep your goof off time to a minimum.

This is a great idea. Mind sharing your script? I block annoying sites with my hostfile, too, but every once in while I actually need to look at something on Facebook. This would also be useful as it's a big mess with all the changes I have to make for work, too. Storing them separately would be super helpful.

Create 2 files hosts.work & hosts.play in /etc

Add these 2 lines into .profile or .bash_profile

alias work='sudo cp -f /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts'

alias play='sudo cp -f /etc/hosts.play /etc/hosts'

If you don't want to sudo, chmod /etc/hosts.

Great idea! Should be mixed with crontab that disable "play mode" every 30 minutes forcing you to manually copy the play host file.

Just remember to be careful with changing permissions on your hosts file. You wouldn't want an unprivileged user to be adding lines to it.

69.57.123.17 your-bank.com

alias work='sudo ln -sf /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts' alias play='sudo ln -sf /etc/hosts.play /etc/hosts'

Here's how I do it, improvements welcome: https://gist.github.com/875467

Awesome. I actually started to write a script based on cp'ing different hostfiles, but I think I like this way better. Thanks!

This is hacker news, you know

http://174.132.225.106/

Here's a much better IP address to use: 66.135.33.106 (try it out http://66.135.33.106/ )

Using localhost can make things awful confusing if you ever happen to run a webserver on port 80 while developing something.

Here's a little script I wrote to block all of my popular ones - https://github.com/leftnode/get-shit-done

Reply on news.ycombinator.com