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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

I do a small trick that seems to work wonders (at least for me).

I don't limit myself at all. When I want to do any activity that seems to be dopamine-fuelling (emails, HN, Reddit, Stripe, other metrics, even company Intercom), I just have to set a timer to certain duration. I can reset, snooze, or extend durations however I want. No rules. Just the action of setting a timer.

Oddly it has made myself way more conscious and intentional. Resulting in almost no actual distractions when I do want to focus. Technical tricks (blocking apps, websites, or DNS) are unfortunately too gimmicky because it's so easy to bypass. And personally I had no results with those.

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"One weird trick" for me is keeping a work journal. A simple text file that gets filled with one-liners: what I'm doing, what tasks remain, what angles I already tried to solve the problem at hand. It keeps me on track and more importantly it takes away the mental burden of remembering the wider context. When I switch away from the browser I can continue the work right where I left it off on the last line of the journal. At the end of the working day I can actually evaluate what I accomplished and what I planned to do.

That said, I only write the journal when I'm chronically distracted. Most often due to lack of sleep. On good days I just become so engrossed in the problem that hours just swoosh by.

Lack of sleep is my killer. The effort to figure things out has me hunting for dopamine and on sites like HN.

I hate it, the days I feel truly alive are when I'm totally focused and smashing out code. Only they're so rare now that I have a family and so many responsibilities outside of writing code.

Second that. I often find myself with the worst self-control late at night or after a few beers.

Young kids mean you can't prevent the tiredness and productivity suffers especially when working from home.

I used to drink a couple of beers at home at night from time to time. We used to buy them in the supermarket with my wife. I thought it was normal, but it isn't. This year I have completely stopped my alcohol intake, I stopped buying beer in the supermarket, and for the first time ever in my life I have been able to control my sleep schedule. I also feel less tired.

Maybe give it a try.

I'm not 100% against alcohol - but in the moment I only drink in social settings never alone at home. Not even one beer.

With all the posts and debates lately on this site about the health "evils" of alcohol, this is the most important thing to note about the substance: It absolutely kills your focus.

Don't quit to "be healthy", as the ill health effects are overblown and highly conflated with other poor lifestyle factors in heavy drinkers.

Quit because the GABA receptor agonism completely wrecks your ability to focus and sleep deeply.

I don't have a regular sleep problem as such, I train regularly so am usually pretty tired. Just on the occasion I have too many or interrupted sleep due to kids or whatever, self-control goes out the window.

I got to the point where drinking wasn't worth it for me. I've had no issues with over indulgence but it still gets me.

There was a period where I'd have 3 or 4 ciders a week. I put on weight like you wouldn't believe.

Then there is snoring, if I have one beer that night my wife won't be able to sleep.

I just don't really drink now.

Filling out timesheets does wonders for this, even if you're not billing per hour. The mere act of writing down what you've done makes you so much more aware of where your time's going.

A big shot once told me just write down what you are doing every hour, that will help you eliminate what you shouldn't be doing.

Planning never goes right, but you can always plan what not to do.

I do the same using org-mode in Emacs. It is a plain text: you can start simple and then gets as complex and fancy as you like. https://youtu.be/hnMntOQjs7Q

Funny note, John Carmack did (does?) a little bit like you. He wrote everyday little notes about the day. You can find them on the Internet back to the very old days up to kind of recently.

I do basically the same thing. I use the pomodoro technique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) when I'm really struggling to focus. I either use an old school analog kitchen timer or https://pomofocus.io if I'm feeling real web 2.0-ish.

Some sort of self-imposed time constraint, whether basic time tracking or pomodoros, is one of the most effective ways I've found to just power through work I don't really want to do.

If _most_ of my work is hard to complete due to excessive distraction and lack of focus, that usually means something larger is wrong. That's when its time to reflect and figure out if I'm working on the wrong team or project or even company.

The app Goodtime is what I use for this. It's the best pomodoro timer I've used - paid or free - on any app store. https://github.com/adrcotfas/Goodtime

Try the reverse. Use Pomodoros only for the distractions but not the actual work.

Incrementalism and flexibility are key in habit forming and dissolution.

I recommend the Impulse Blocker plugin for a timer on specific websites (youtube, hacker news, etc.)

iPhone has timer tools for limiting app usage and different modes for work, personal time, sleep to filter and limit notifications.

Make use of your email categories and unsubscribing to help filter emails that are a waste of time.

The reverse of do an activity for a set amount of time (read a book for 5 mins, wash half the dishes) has been helpful for myself as well. This can be progressively ramped up as opposed to ramping down attention sinks.

Godspeed to any and all trying to take back some of their attention.

I wonder how many developers fell into the trap of thinking they need to first write a TODO list app before they can really get productive.

I was almost one of them. I think the way people manage tasks and external state is so situationally, personally and contextually dependent that most todo list software gets to 60% of people's ideal workflow and that just isn't enough to work long term.

I went back to a hardback notebook for a while and had quite a bit of success - the UX of pen and paper is really hard to beat, and you can implement whatever processes work on a page.

That's started failing to scale, so I've started to look at software again. I've been trialing Amazing Marvin for a few weeks now, and I'm pretty happy with it. Lots of very different features that can be individually turned on or off to customise your workflow. I'll very likely convert to a paid user soon.

I use a combination of Notes.app and a Moleskin notebook. My handwritten notes are almost unreadable, as I am always quickly brainstorming and not intending to read it again.

I found it far more helpful than I expected to simply wear a watch that emits a small buzz every hour on the hour. So many times I'd find myself drifting off task, get that little hourly buzz, and think 'oh, this isn't what I was meant to be doing' and get back on task.

Curious what watch specifically does that? Thanks

Mine is a Pebble Time Steel (actually now it's a pair of them since the battery life has reduced a little, but my friend who also bought one now has a Samsung Gear and so donated theirs). It's been great and the functionality has survived Pebble's untimely demise thanks to the crowd at rebble.io. Unfortunately the app doesn't seem to be on the Apple store any more and my old phone finally actually died so their days may be numbered.

I use the Mac app Focus for this, even though you find it gimmicky I have it set up in the same way as you do on the most part.

I have a whitelist, rather than blacklist, so only sites that are related to doing productive work are allowed as well as apps. But the application has a break feature, which gives it out in five minute chunks, so if i want to stop and look at anything other than work, I have to go into the menu bar and select break and then i get five minutes.

Once that is up, it resets and I have to go back in and do another five minutes, this limits my time and makes me more aware. I can also set a max time for the overall amount of five minute chunks I am allowed if I want to get more restrictive.

Timers seem to be the key for me with anything though to be honest.

There's truth to this I found aswell. When I was a teenager I could play video games endlessly, but recently I found video games to be mostly a chore (a few here and there make an exception). I think there's an aspect of limit artifically making a thing more desirable -- but I don't find it reliable, sometimes even indulging in this aspect for activities is the actual time waste I want to avoid.

This is like when I need to get ready in a hurry I count the seconds and it's surprising how quick you end up moving :)

interesting idea. seems equivalent to the trick of paying cash instead of by card as it makes you more conscious of what you spend. also, at the end of the day there is no trick b/c if you're so inclined you'll always find a loophole. so it all comes back to simply being aware of impulses and your ability to have control over them. knowing what time you actually spent so far is an important information. as with all dopaminergic activities (cocaine being an extreme one) you lose oversight of time - an hour can (especially in hindsight) feel like 5 minutes.

Yes, exactly the same as spending cash vs. credit. Conscious money spending is even less important than conscious time spending.

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