For me it's more about balancing the opportunity cost of possibly not knowing this one important fact with the pain that is realizing how much of the stuff I am

For me it's more about balancing the opportunity cost of possibly not knowing this one important fact with the pain that is realizing how much of the stuff I am actually failing to get back to in the end. So I usually try to answer these questions for me: 1. What is the probability I will actually read it? 2. How much benefit is actually contained within the information the article might provide? 3. How much stress will I experience when I realize I am not catching up? If I am honest on most of the things on HN score rather low on 1+2 but medium on 3. I can make the conscious decision that the trade-off is not worth it for me. Combine that with a rule that either I will read it now or it's not important enough and usually I can browse through the comments a little bit trying to siphon the gist of an article in a couple minutes and failing that I will just move on. Apart form that it has also helped is realizing that I absolutely loathe reading any long form articles. Even if I am really interested in the topic, I just cannot concentrate long enough to read any technical long form article that contains any form of 'fluff' in the writing. I started to hate reading these kinds of articles more and more.