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Nowhere near as broad-ranging, but I'll make the note for HN users not aware of it - if HN is your sole (main?) distraction, you can use the noprocrast feature

Nowhere near as broad-ranging, but I'll make the note for HN users not aware of it - if HN is your sole (main?) distraction, you can use the noprocrast feature on your user page. Change to Yes, add a max time you allow yourself to visit HN and then the min time you want to be forced to be away. As I say, nowhere near as broadly applicable or useful as the OP, but worth noting especially if (like me) HN is your distraction of choice and you have minimal technical skills.

keefe 16y ago
>if (like me) HN is your distraction of choice and you have minimal technical skills. this is a small and interesting portion of mindspace
calloc 16y ago
The noprocrast feature stops working very well when you use Safari. It has the web page preview stuff, and every-time that refreshes the noprocrast kicks in. Since it does that way more often than I visit the site the site is continuously in noprocrast mode.
lionhearted 16y ago
After playing with noprocrast, I found very good settings for me are maxvisit: 20 minaway: 1 That means, every 20 minutes HN kicks me off for one minute. I leave it like that constantly - it means if I'm spending time on here nonstop for an hour or two, I get a couple little reminders to ask myself if I really want to be on here. If I do, it's not a big deal to get up and make myself a tea or whatever until 1 minute passes, if not I close the tab and get to business, and it's low enough that I don't cheat by logging in with another browser or Chrome Incognito Mode.
crpatino 16y ago
It is not the greatest distraction, but a significant fraction of it (#1 distraction, and about 3x as big as #2, according to RescueTime). While it is not a huge problem, and there is lot of value I extract from this site, culling seems like a good idea. A daily quota would help me avoid the high hitters and still keep myself "well read".

keefe 16y ago

>if (like me) HN is your distraction of choice and you have minimal technical skills. this is a small and interesting portion of mindspace

calloc 16y ago

The noprocrast feature stops working very well when you use Safari. It has the web page preview stuff, and every-time that refreshes the noprocrast kicks in. Since it does that way more often than I visit the site the site is continuously in noprocrast mode.

lionhearted 16y ago

After playing with noprocrast, I found very good settings for me are maxvisit: 20 minaway: 1 That means, every 20 minutes HN kicks me off for one minute. I leave it like that constantly - it means if I'm spending time on here nonstop for an hour or two, I get a couple little reminders to ask myself if I really want to be on here. If I do, it's not a big deal to get up and make myself a tea or whatever until 1 minute passes, if not I close the tab and get to business, and it's low enough that I don't cheat by logging in with another browser or Chrome Incognito Mode.

crpatino 16y ago

It is not the greatest distraction, but a significant fraction of it (#1 distraction, and about 3x as big as #2, according to RescueTime). While it is not a huge problem, and there is lot of value I extract from this site, culling seems like a good idea. A daily quota would help me avoid the high hitters and still keep myself "well read".