I'm not on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, fb etc) and I don't use my phone that often but I spend a lot of time on computers and tend to waste a lot of time on Reddit/HN/ simular sources.
Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#2My personal experience is to have a schedule. A vague outline of things I want to get done. I spend a little time on the internet in between jobs around the house or on the homestead. This allows me to take a break from having the entire world in front of my face and I get some sunlight to promote mitochondrial health. This has helped my sleep a great deal and keeps me physically active. After doing some heavy lifting and moving of things I come in, take a quick shower and then have a cup of lemon balm tea and see what the internet is up to.
Like you, I also do not use social media beyond HN.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#3I've found this Chrome/Edge extension very helpful: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/intention-stop-min...
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#4time blocking
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#5Get off HN! (observe pot calling kettle black)
It's hard, honestly, to do work on computers, because they're rife with distractions. When I want to read, I deliberately leave my phone in the other room. When I can, work things out with pen&paper, again, phone and computer in another room -- but it's rare that a problem I'm working on can be approached with pen&paper.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#6I found it useful to focus less on reducing time on computers etc. and more on increasing time on the things I really cared about. To use a food analogy: when a person has a great and satisfying meal, they have much less appetite to binge eat a bag of chips.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#7Add whatever site is sucking up your time to /etc/hosts.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#8Is it really a waste? I work in IT security and I find HN (and some other sites) very useful. Much insightful stuff in the comments.
I spend a lot of time here especially when I don't have anything better to do but I wouldn't call it a waste.
If you had been on Facebook etc then yeah that is a total waste. I think you're doing pretty well already.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#9Add whatever site is sucking up your time to /etc/hosts.
I do this too. It's pretty crazy how often I find myself staring at an error page wondering what happened.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stop time wasting on the internet?
#10Use an LTE hotspot with a very small quota for fast data, and unlimited quota of slow data.
You can still do everything you need, but everything will be awful, and you'll not enjoy doing anything you only want to do.