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PG: Disconnecting Distraction

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Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#81

Post by maxklein »

keating wrote: post #70
maxklein wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is, the world is full of people who whine about problems and always find something else to blame for the problems, no matter how abstract. It's rare to find the man who realizes that everything he fails at is ultimately his own fault, because everyone is free to do whatever they want.

> because everyone is free to do whatever they want. Citation needed. > It's rare to find the man who realizes that everything he fails at is ultimately his own fault Incompatible with the other claim. If other people are free to do whatever they want, they are free not to cooperate with you. If you fail to get Megan Fox to want to engage in mating behavior with you, it may well be due to circumstances beyond your co…

If I cannot lay Megan Fox, it's because she decided not to. Excercising my freedom does not give me the right to take away someone elses freedom. If however, Miss Fox says no to me, and I take that to mean that I will fail with all chicks from then on, then that is my own bloody fault, and its something I can change easily by trying for other chicks.

So when someone blames his reading of reddit on his high school, I say that's silly, and its something he is absolutely in control of, and can change without affecting anybody elses freedom.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#82

Post by albertcardona »

tyn wrote: post #51
marvin wrote: post #37

I'm going to say something unpopular now, so be warned. Is wasting time on..TV, MMORPGs, the Internet, senseless magazines etc. really that much of a problem for us as individuals? Procrastinating obviously robs time from "useful" activities like working, but how much use are these activities, really? Work applied correctly certainly brings humanity as a whole to new and better pastures, but I'm wondering whether thi…

I was also wondering whether web surfing is really a "waste of time". Would I be better off if I had never come to this site, never read hacker news comments and pg essays and using all this "wasted" time to become better in a programming language, instead? I know, you will probably be more succesful if you stay focused but there is so much interesting information in the internet and what the hell, you only leave onc…

Finding the right balance, that's the hard part.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#84

Post by anr »

nostrademons wrote: post #65
whacked_new wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm particularly interested on your take on various forms of distractions, given your response to my question about frustration. Distraction can be used to kill frustration, but there's likely a secret, a skill, or a science in utilizing it, in the sense that it takes your mind off of something enough to change your approach, reinvigorate your interest, or whatever. You talked about working on completely irrelevant p…

Something I realized after I wrote that comment: all the side-projects mentioned used the same toolset as the main project, but used it for a different purpose. So for example: 1.) Scrutiny was a quick PHP-based course evaluation system, done entirely when I should've been working on a large PHP rewrite of a HP fanfiction site. It took 2 weeks, vs. 3 years for FictionAlley (all part time). 2.) Bootstrapacitor was a q…

"[P]rocrastination is actually a subconscious lack of competence."

I agree, I think a sense of "perceived incompetence", insecurity and confusion can lead to procrastination.

Trying to define a problem well, or breaking it into smaller ones, can help a lot. The same logic can be applied to projects.

Keeping up with Reddit and HN can also lead to frustration (yes I see the irony :), there's so much happening in web development. If only there were a way to ignore fads and keep up with the really important trends...

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#85

Post by b3eck »

noahlt wrote: post #43

That's fine if you're PG and you write all the software yourself, but what if you're using a web framework or other open-source tools and need the web to access documentation or ask questions?

After reading your comment and others', I realized that iptables might be able to help out here. I wrote up an Ask HN ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192953 ) which shows my current setup for throttling internet usage. Granted, storing pages in the browser cache is one great way to access documentation, but throttling might allow one to add pages to the cache while keeping procrastination at bay.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#86

Post by nostrademons »

prakash wrote: post #35

PG and others, instead of using 2 computers, you might want to try what works for me. I used RescueTime for a few months before realizing I was asking the wrong question i.e. ( Where & how long do I spend my online time? ). The correct question , for me, was to spend as much time online as I wanted as long as I have completed the things I wanted . Once you start browsing, while you are supposed to be working, you go…

"The correct question, for me, was to spend as much time online as I wanted as long as I have completed the things I wanted."

I've tried this, and it's generally a better approach, but then I run into a new question: what do I want to complete today? There's always more work that I could be doing, and it's sometimes hard to judge what's a fair day's worth of work.

For example, I finished one feature yesterday, compared to a dozen commits on Wednesday (and an average of about 2-3 features/day). But it was a feature that's been bugging me for a couple weeks so far, while Wednesday's work was a couple misc features, some added unit tests, updating to a new version of JQuery UI, and a lot of refactoring. When I was working on yesterday's feature, it was very much a "Shit, I haven't done anything today" - but that was because it was a hard feature to implement that required a lot of thought into how it integrated with the rest of the system. While on Wednesday, if I'd stopped after 2 svn commits, I would've done a grand total of 8 lines of work.

Also, I've found that my attitude towards more work changes significantly after finishing a new feature. Before check-in, I was like "Damnit, I can't wait for this to be over, I wonder what's on news.YC", while afterwards, I was like "Hmm, I wonder what else I can add." (I didn't add anything because it was 11:30 PM, but I probably could've worked in a few small bugfixes.)

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#87

Post by iamwil »

Just an hour online? To read articles, and all the comments, and reply to them? Not to mention emails? PG must be a super fast reader and writer, or his hours are longer than mine.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#88

Post by pg »

noahlt wrote: post #43

That's fine if you're PG and you write all the software yourself, but what if you're using a web framework or other open-source tools and need the web to access documentation or ask questions?

This is what I meant when I said the long-term solution might be software that controlled how you used the Internet, rather than simply turning off wifi.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#89

Post by papersmith »

tokipin wrote: post #40
umjames wrote: post #21

What about having the other computer that's connected to the internet be physically uncomfortable to use for an extended period of time? Maybe force yourself to stand to use that computer?

i picture a chair covered with metal spikes

I think a good compromise would be a table of sitting-height, but without a chair.

Re: PG: Disconnecting Distraction

#90

Post by adamsmith »

I usually keep separate Firefox windows open: one for distractions (with the basic four tabs: google RSS reader, gmail, facebook, and news.yc), and 'n' other windows for work.

You may not need to be as explicit as a different computer on the other side of the room. I wonder if it would be enough just to theme your firefox windows. You could have the circuitboard theme for work firefox windows, and the carebears theme for play windows. The theme could change depending on what tabs are open in the window.

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