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Comment by leobg | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t it funny how much attention these anti-procrastination posts are getting on essentially a procrastination site?

(Tongue in cheek! I love HN. I just know that I sometimes do abuse it as a procrastination device.)

Hacker News doesn't count because i am "learning something", even though i can't recall a single thing I read today

Hah. Yeah it feels like the knowledge I gain here most often is just further training of my "intuition module" with little to nothing discrete being committed to memory.

My parents use the same argument about social media.

“Facebook doesn’t count because I only use it to keep track of what people I know are doing.”

That has to be right up there with the number of times I have heard “I don’t use Facebook, I only use Instagram”.

“I just watch this TV show because I want to witness how stupid TV can get.”

It’s also funny how all these posts are so “western” in style: ‘Hey look at me, I did something a bit difficult for 3 days, now I am a guru!’

Not trying to knock the author but the time window is simply too small and this approach is simply too common online. Let’s see if the author can actually change lifestyle for more than 5 years and then we can discuss about “lessons learned”.

This is a bit harsh; the article does contain a lot of useful advice. I myself implemented many of these tips about two years ago, and am still going strong. I do fall off the wagon here and there and get sucked into my phone, especially when I'm avoiding something in real life, but I really value having minimal notifications. I also love focus modes (though I've only known about them for about a year I think) -- great for working, sleeping, and overall mental health. But I would stress this important point: if you have trouble implementing these steps, there may be a bigger issue in your life that you're avoiding.

What does that have to do with being “western”?

the self-help and productivity genre does have a uniquely American bent (more so than Western I'd say), these blog posts always read like some form of digital Protestantism, they do love their busywork. Immediately jumping to thinking you're procrastinating, rather than say contemplating when you're not churning out one book per year is an attitude you won't find everywhere.

I think this doesn't do the intentions of the author much justice. He clearly explained how his addictions destroyed his ability to focus on any task at all, no matter how much value you place on that task.

Reading a book or watching a TV series uninterrupted are hardly ambitious or productive tasks, yet entire generations now can't focus on such "lengthy" task.

I say this is bogus, anyone can still read a book that is interesting. The problem is that most people are not exposed to interesting books anymore, since most books published in the last few years are undeserving of attention. I tell this for personal experience, when I find a book that grabs my attention I can spend several hours reading, but most books don't even deserve 15 min. My strategy is to spend more time researching things that I like and really want to read.

Well put. That focus on “productivity” also has something of what Nietzsche called the “slave mentality”. That belief that you’re worth only what you produce, like a cow. I actually subscribe to this reductionist belief myself in many ways - but it’s an easy target to feel smug about when reflected back by somebody else out there preaching it as gospel.

Exactly what I thought. He just changed to a new habit and wants to say that this "cured" his procrastination problems. I would suggest that it did nothing, at least for now. Maybe in a couple of years it may be different.

I don't see the author claiming they're a guru. I just see them sharing their experience on their own personal struggle, focusing on what ended up working for them.

Also, I'm sure it's been longer than 3 days since they've found these things worked for them. By 5 years, they're likely going to forget their struggle.

Many Asian, North African, and Middle Eastern countries struggle with similar problems. And, this is not even developed/developing nations. I see it in economically poor or non-industrialized countries too.

When it comes to HN, I definitely have mixed feelings about the procrastination aspect. Yet I am unwilling to drop it since there are stories that I am genuinely interested in and make life better. So it is a net positive in my books.

Just in case people don't realise: HN has a built-in anti-procrastination feature. You can set it in your profile. I have mine setup so that I can spend 10 minutes on HN every 2 hours.

> 10 minutes on HN every 2 hours.

That's not exactly infrequent. HN doesn't change all that much in a whole day.

shrug it works for me to have it set like that. Besides, it's a limit, I don't necessarily hit it.

How to tweak the

     noprocrast: 
     maxvisit: 
     minaway: 
     delay:

values for that?

Where would you go if you wanted to target procrastinators?

HN is the only site I know that has server level procrastination blocking. I love it for that.

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