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News.YC detrimental to hacking?
I love surfing around news.YC and checking on the latest submissions, I learn a great deal of stuff this way. But I noticed a scary trend recently. When I started visiting news.YC on a regular basis the amount of work I got done for my startup decreased significantly.
I currently only can work on my startup outside of my full-time job and I find that news.YC is essentially competing with my startup for time (and sadly winning). I know this is due to lack of discipline on my part but I was wondering if anyone else experienced something similar.
- dfranke 19y agoThe solution to this is simply to add the site to your outgoing firewall until you've gotten a good day of productive work done. Afterwards you can remove it and your usage will hopefully return to normal. It worked for me, at least.
- curi 19y agoThat solution is too specialized. You should simply hire a person to whip you when you aren't working. He can use his intelligence to cover many more cases than your firewall.
- michaelneale 19y agoHe must whip it.
- DocSavage 19y agoHe must whip it good.
- idea 19y agoHe? I prefer a woman. In a leather catsuit.
- brlewis 19y agoOh yeah, great idea. That would really solve his "I'm distracted from my startup" problem.
- Xichekolas 19y agoDepending on how old/nerdy he is, she might only distract him for a minute or two... snickers
- jdavid 19y agoi have thought about that too, my firewall even has the ability to block certain sites during certain hours, but i figure that I will just end up trying to hack my own router. not because i really want to, but because it would become a game for my self. who knows maybe then i would end up starting an info sec company instead.
- staunch 19y agoEasy solution: Let it interfere with your full-time job instead of your of your startup! Problem solved. /me dusts hands
- ced 19y agoI started a year and a half ago to live without a home internet connection to save money. It ended up being a rather substantial productivity boost. I'd recommend it.
- jkush 19y agoThat's not a bad idea. I still have an internet connection. When I starting coding, I unplug from the cable modem. I'm too lazy to plug it back in so I get several hours of work done that way.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoYep
- edw519 19y agoI got invited to an interview, what'll I do? I got rejected, what'll I do? PHP sucks. C# sucks. Microsoft sucks. Ruby rules! Best. Interface. Ever. Scientists in Sweden produce Britney Spears in a petri dish. pg is great. Where can I get the best corporate lawyer in the world for free? Anyone want to buy some legal drugs? Ask YC: When I sit too long in this chair, my back hurts. What should I do? YC: Switch chairs. YC should start a franchise in Europe. YC should start a franchise in Latin America. YC should start a franchise in Asia. YC should start a franchise in Brooklyn. Ask YC: I don't know how to code? How can I build a web app that makes a million dollars by Tuesday? Ask YC: I need motivation. Any hints? There. You just read all of today's YC news. Now close your browser and get to work.
- DanielBMarkham 19y agoYou forgot: Lisp is great Why are people in big companies so dumb? Why FaceBook sux Why FaceBook rocks! Why are we talking so much about FaceBook? Google is good Google is bad Google is misunderstood How can I get Google to buy my company?
- Xichekolas 19y agoAnd you forgot: Ask YC: How can I write Facebook in Lisp by next Tuesday? I love||hate apple... steve jobs is so brilliant||crazy! I can't believe you modded me down! Zero to rich with Ruby on Rails in 30 days. Google clones DHH in a petri dish.
- falsestprophet 19y agoNon-hacker wants to make next Facebook with tag cloud. Plz help! Where can I find a hacker to build my brilliant Web 2.0 AJAX idea for free and for no equity? Thx.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- adrianwaj 19y agoSubscribe to this RSS feed: http://www.aiderss.com/rss/best/news.ycombinator.com http://www.aiderss.com/rss/best/news.ycombinator.com
- iamwil 19y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69119 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69119 I think nostro was on point with that post for both burnout, and reading too much hacker.news. I think we're all afflicted with it to some extent because we're invested in this community, so we kinda like to catch-up on the going-ons of our community. However, if it's taking over to the point that you can't get work done, that should indicate that whatever your startup is just isn't interesting to you, or has no meaning. Ideally, your startup idea should be something you're glad you did on your deathbed. Otherwise, you might as well work for someone else. Sometimes, I forget why what I'm working on has any meaning. It's easy to get lost in the details. That's why it helps to write down a clear and concise vision, so you can refer back to it. That said, you just have to know how you work best. block hacker.news when you work best. open the floodgates when you have your low points in the day. It's different for everyone.
- brlewis 19y agoUse news.yc to motivate you: Post here what improvement you're going to make to your startup in the next week, then go do it. If you don't do it I volunteer to ridicule you. Would that motivate you? If you post "I'm going to make improvement X" to my startup and later write "I did improvement X" you would add some much-needed variety to news.yc. You'll also be admired as someone who's actually doing something. Would that motivate you? Get more motivation first. Use self-discipline when there's no other option. Once you're motivated, without even thinking about it you'll cut your news.yc reading down to just the really useful stuff.
- cstejerean 19y agoThis is a really cool suggestion. I'll try starting this weekend. If I don't meet my goals by the following week I'll owe anyone who notices a beer (either when they come to Chicago or when I visit wherever they're located).
- ivankirigin 19y agoTo state the obvious: 1. to do good work, you must isolate yourself from distractions. 2. The internet is a distraction 3. The conundrum: you often need an internet connection to test your work, learn more about something new, communicate with your team/repository/bug-tracker. I've seen a simple utility to block certain sites when you're working, but the most powerful solution is between your ears.
- Tichy 19y agoI have just create a Greasemonkey script that replaces the contents of a page with the words "Get back to work!". Not perfect (you see a flash of the website before the content is replaced), and not as elegant as a firewall perhaps. But it might be easier to manage (Tools->Greasemonkey->Manage user Scripts -> enable/disable or add/remove site). To be found at http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13290 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13290