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Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

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Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#121

Post by Y_Y »

mgrund wrote: post #65
xgdgsc wrote: post #35

Recently I bought a Hisense a5pro eink phone as my secondary phone and commenting from it. I'm experimenting with reading those addictive sites only through this eink screen(block them on colorful screens). So far the desire to continue browsing or comment has dropped by a great deal. I think it might work if those sites are less visually stimulus than your workstation.

I have even found that just changing my phone to grayscale helps a lot and it’s an easy thing to do. I use a shortcut to toggle it so I can easily enable colors when I need them.

I do this through the colourblindness simulation options in the Android developer setting menu. I don't know a way to make a shortcut for that though.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#122

Post by JKCalhoun »

> By what am I judging a given 10 minutes as being spent wisely?

Perhaps we can all make these same judgments easily (acting on them is a different matter of course).

Some of these things (perhaps learning chess, not my thing though) harbor calm in my psyche, allow my thoughts to unwind. Walking, reading, writing are things that have net-positive karma.

Other of these things (for me the news) can instead leave my mind troubled, anxious. These have net-negative karma. Often though these are seemingly addictive.

I allow for the negative because I want to be informed and often creative ideas come from exploring what others are doing, what is happening in the world.

I am trying to learn to time-bucket the addictive (and not-often creatively productive) activities though. At the same time I am beginning to recognize that I cannot be always on for the writing or other creative pursuits.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#123

Post by Trex_Egg »

Jensson wrote: post #115
uyt wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's an evolutionary reason for that preference or if this is just an edge case in our rewards system that never mattered until it became heavily exploited by other humans in the modern world.

I think it is a learning mechanism. The real world is very deterministic, if a process has seemingly random outcomes then most likely there is something about it you don't understand, so you repeat it over and over trying to make connections to understand why the different outcomes happens. You can see this a lot in gambling addicts trying to find different ways to beat the system etc, trying to predict which number…

Nice explanations there.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#124

Post by matheusmoreira »

hattmall wrote: post #58

The Hook with sites like Reddit, HN, etc is that they ARE addictive. Actually addictive in the sense of gambling. In gambling addiction the gamblers aren't addicted to winning, they are addicted to losing, or "almost winning". Now if they never ever won the addiction wouldn't form. If they ALWAYS won the addiction also wouldn't form. The old thing was email that people were addicted to checking because you MIGHT get…

HN is addictive but I don't think it's deliberately designed to be that way. The posts and comments here really are interesting.

Modern games are designed from the ground up to form habits. Steady random chance rewards, timers, daily tasks... Basically Skinner's box simulators designed to impose a schedule on players via psychological conditioning. Then it's a simple matter to hook up the reward button to the player's credit card.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#125

Post by arh68 »

Chess?! That's my most pointless hobby! I guess it's a matter of perspective.

Sometimes I feel doing my own yard / auto work is a waste of time, that an hour of my work could pay an hour of theirs, but as long as I can draw the line I think it's ok.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#126

Post by mlac »

uyt wrote: post #99
psychstudio wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classical "variable reward". Manifests in all areas of life.

I wonder if there's an evolutionary reason for that preference or if this is just an edge case in our rewards system that never mattered until it became heavily exploited by other humans in the modern world.

Hunting and gathering. There may or may not be an animal when you Go out. Even if you track it, it still might get away.

Animals may have made it to the berries before you did, so you need to keep looking to find the next patch.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#127

Post by adwn »

loa_in_ wrote: post #112
adwn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of balance. Too much "open door" mentality, and you'll never achieve anything that distinguishes you from the rest. You won't create a new trend if you're always chasing the latest trends.

I honestly think it's quite far fetched to connect the two - open door; and trendseeker.

But that's what open door means in this metaphor: "staying aligned with the field", i.e., following the mainstream trends.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#128

Post by Trex_Egg »

suriyaG wrote: post #34
Swizec wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as Hamming says in his famous essay: He who works with a closed door is more productive today and tomorrow, but over time works on just slightly the wrong things to make an impact. But those with an open door are full of flitting and scattering and keep getting distracted, yet over time stay aligned with the field and are much more likely to do important work

Is there a link to this essay? I'm curious now. Edit: found it https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

Hey, thanks for sharing this post. I find this as an interesting one.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#129

Post by Trex_Egg »

adwn wrote: post #78
Swizec wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as Hamming says in his famous essay: He who works with a closed door is more productive today and tomorrow, but over time works on just slightly the wrong things to make an impact. But those with an open door are full of flitting and scattering and keep getting distracted, yet over time stay aligned with the field and are much more likely to do important work

It's a matter of balance. Too much "open door" mentality, and you'll never achieve anything that distinguishes you from the rest. You won't create a new trend if you're always chasing the latest trends.

But for me finding that holy balance is in itself is tiring. some times the contents are no engaging and so it feels easier to skip through the slacking and get some work done. But in other times it is hard. The balance of this mechanism seems so dynamics.

Re: Scattered thoughts on why I waste my own time

#130

Post by Trex_Egg »

mlac wrote: post #29
totetsu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing works to begin with at least.. when that browser plugin in chrome stops me opening HN after 1hour it interrupts the impulse to browse, but then I can alway just open Firefox.. Limits outside ones control are best.. it's amazing how uninteresting youtube is when your data is rate limited.

Yeah, giving someone else the keys or password for locking down devices is weird but ideal if it’s a real problem.

I am going to try out this.
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