Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack • Hacker News Board

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#21

Post by untitledz » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:00 PM UTC

my hax: http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/the-coworking-pact... http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/dont-cowork-pair-p...

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#22

Post by jreposa » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:03 PM UTC

jreposa wrote: post #8

So, everytime I take a break and actually don't mind wasting time on reddit, I have to comment out parts of my /etc/hosts ?

If you have TextMate and want to be able to disable and enable those /etc/hosts lines quickly, see the Screenr HOWTO:

  http://screenr.com/Sg7

After seeing Alex use Screenr, I just had to try it out myself.

short version:

  1. mate /etc/hosts
  2. select the lines you want to comment out
  3. command forward-slash (⌘/)
  4. save and authenticate if necessary

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#23

Post by rsheridan6 » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:03 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #20

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure there's software out there for every OS that will do this. Alternatively, you can unplug a cable / disable WiFi.

There is, but I want something automated. I lack self-control.

I intend to write something to do this soon, at the request of my wife. Basically, you need a cron job or something similar that edits /etc/hosts - shouldn't be too difficult.

But it would work better for people who don't know enough to manually edit /etc/hosts.

EDIT: the /etc/hosts thing would be to block specific sites, but it's just as easy to take the internet connection down completely with ifconfig or whatever your system uses.

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#24

Post by wave » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:13 PM UTC

Instead of blocking the distracting sites permanently, using iptables might work little better by restricting access by time of day or duration.

[edit] I found the following: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192953

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#25

Post by gizmo » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:15 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #9

edw519 wrote: post #2

My Keep-Working Hack: 2 computers. One for work. One for internet. In different rooms. An egg timer. 48 minutes of work. 12 minutes of break. http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power-of... http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html

That works for those of us with two computers. I wish there was a way of routinely disabling the Internet, rather than having me manually do it.

Complete overkill, but my router enforces a daily limit for sites I visit too often. It's not that difficult to set up. Make a iptables chain, route all traffic that matches certain ips to that chain, add a --limit and --limit-burst counter to that chain, deny by default, allow when below said limit.

For bonus points, make all http connections redirect to your favorite todo list when you've exceeded your limit, and deny all ssh access (to the router) during working hours.

Setting it up was complete procrastination of course, but it works better than any manual block list. By slightly lowering my daily time waste allowance I can reduce the time I spend on sites like these.

EDIT:

Blocking with hosts is terrible, because you don't want to block sites permanently, and if you continually enable/disable the block list your muscle memory will unblock a site even before you realize you should be working. Cron job limits don't work when you don't have very strict working hours. Basically, you want to take a break for a few minutes every hour or so, and you need soft limits to enforce that.

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#26

Post by prakash » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:18 PM UTC

Why do all that, why not use freedom? http://macfreedom.com/

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#27

Post by mrtron » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:28 PM UTC

Concentrate app for mac users breaks the procrastination cycle.

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#28

Post by mrtron » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:29 PM UTC

pxlpshr wrote: post #10

Pretty cool app I found for Mac. http://getconcentrating.com Concentrate helps you work and study more productively by eliminating distractions. To start, create an activity (design, study, write, etc) and choose actions (shown below) to run every time you concentrate. When ready, just click “concentrate." All your distractions will disappear and a timer will appear to help you stay focused.

I use it - even tried to buy it but my credit card was rejected.

Works great for me. The only added feature I would like is to be able to schedule activities, ie. 9-5 daily block distractions.

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#29

Post by warfangle » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:39 PM UTC

Psst. Why is al3x.net loading an external gif every 20 seconds? It's distracting to see my browser indicate that it's loading something when I didn't interact with anything :)

Re: Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

#30

Post by dcurtis » Tue, Sep 15, 2009, 3:39 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #2

My Keep-Working Hack: 2 computers. One for work. One for internet. In different rooms. An egg timer. 48 minutes of work. 12 minutes of break. http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power-of... http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html

What? Do you really do this? It would drive me insane. Every 48 minutes you're interrupted by an alarm forcing you to stop what you're doing, get up, lose your train of thought, and then start over again?

Also, you can't reliably separate the work computer from the internet one if you want to search the web for help/resources. How do you manage that?