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Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

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

#41
Every time I see something like this I'm reminded of the idea of trying stop drug addicts by maEvery time I see something like this I'm reminded of the idea of trying stop drug addicts by making drugs harder to get. Somehow, some way, you're going to get the drug.

The problem is not to restrict your access, but to change your desire. There's a much deeper problem if you require hand-slapping to stop you viewing sites like reddit while at work.

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

#43
post #38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

From your own web site, http://30dayflight.com/ ... It is impossible for me to achieve the minimum level of awesomeness that I require of articles before I publish them within just a few hours in a single day, so I'm going to switch to a 3- or 5-day publishing timespan. This will hopefully keep me from going totally insane. For someone who so goes "insane" and finds things "impossible" so easily, perhaps you should o…

Wow, relax. He just asked you a question.

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

#44
post #26

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

While this is no doubt useful, its hilarious that something that actually removes a feature from your computer is being billed as "the most wonderful software ever invented." (not by you, by someone quoted on their homepage.)

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

#45
My hack: run bittorrent during work time. Every site gets a lot slower. For me, the increase in latency makes distractions less enjoyable, but full access is still there if I really need it. On a few occasions, I've found important work-related stuff on HN.

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

#48
I do something similar. I use LeechBlock, an add-on for Firefox. I have it set to let me view sites, such as HN, before 7:30 (a reward for getting in early), during lunch (hopefully, that means between 11:30-Noon:30), and after 4:30 (brain is probably mush at this point anyways). LeechBlock even lets you redirect to a different site instead of a blacklisted one. I picked my companies web site. I must say, I have conditioned myself doing this. The urge to check time-sinks have dropped significantly since I have been doing this.

After reading this, I feel editing /etc/hosts is a better option.

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

#49
post #9
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.

http://blog.rescuetime.com/2009/08/19/turning-off-the-distra...

We're actually pretty close to this (just soft-launched our windows version-- mac version hot on its heels). Starting with focus "toggling" ("Shut of the bad parts of the internet for 30 minutes") and moving on to nudges ("let me know when I exceed 30m of news time") and blocking ("block social networking if I exceed X hours or X %").

Disabling the internet is a baby/bathwater thing for a lot of people, I think. There's too much value there to turn it off completely (research, etc).

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

#50
post #38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

From your own web site, http://30dayflight.com/ ... It is impossible for me to achieve the minimum level of awesomeness that I require of articles before I publish them within just a few hours in a single day, so I'm going to switch to a 3- or 5-day publishing timespan. This will hopefully keep me from going totally insane. For someone who so goes "insane" and finds things "impossible" so easily, perhaps you should o…

I use the same thing I did to quit smoking. Sort of an OCD-like 'As Good As It Gets' technique.

Step 1. Whenever I feel the 'urge' to read e.g. HN, I close my eyes and quit my browser. Then I breathe slowly and deeply three times, holding it for about 5 secs.

Usually that does it, I regain my senses and go back to work. If it doesn't work:

Step 2. I have to stare at my screen and say, out loud, "I'm the man. I'm getting shit done. I'm King fking Kong." I try to do a victorious or chest-beating gesture as well. Usually I get a little mini-dopamine rush, and then off I go.

I rarely get to step 3. But if the first two steps don't work

Step 3. I'm not allowed to do any work for the next 120 minutes, at all. I can do whatever I want, but nothing useful or productive.

That last one is nuclear. Think about it - if every time you look at that HN toolbar button, you know you're going to lose 2 minimum hours ... would you click it?

It also helps to have free time later to enjoy HN at one's leisure (something that is obviously not the case with smoking..)

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