It might be related to procrastination. If you feel that the time where you're working on something that doesn't interest you is time where you could be doing

It might be related to procrastination. If you feel that the time where you're working on something that doesn't interest you is time where you could be doing something better your brain will feel mentally painful. That blocks your mental faculties and might induce you to seek for doing other activities (like being here on HN). One technique to rewire the brain is to do time-bounded periods of work with a reward at the end. It's a bit like a work-up. Look for pomodoro technique. See: https://class.coursera.org/learning-003/lecture/19 https://class.coursera.org/learning-003/lecture/19