Ask HN: Help me, I fuck around on the Internet too much

127.0.0.1 Reddit reddit.com

127.0.0.1 techcrunch.com techcrunch

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 fark.com

etc....

Really it's like watching T.V. except it's the internet. Brainless activities which keeps us just enough entertained that we don't go watch T.V. instead. ;)

It's also procrastination from doing the things you really need to be doing. So, check out the tips on dealing with procrastination.

I think what works best for me is to realize that I'm aimlessly wandering and just get up from the computer and do something else. Bonus points for getting out of the house. When I come back, if I fall into the same trap, then rinse and repeat.

Another trick is to simply do something productive on the computer for just 15 minutes. Set a timer and go. Once you get to that first 15 then usually that's all you need to keep going long enough to call it a day so that you can waste your time without feeling guilty that you didn't do anything. ;)

It's all self-discipline. Like a diet, you could eat cake an ice cream every meal, but you'd become fat. You need the self-discipline to limit yourself on the Internet to remain productive.

Another way to lOok at it, depending on what motivates you ... Think in terms of "is mark zuckerberg wasting hours on these stupid forums every day?"

You are not alone. Read this: http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/conceding-defeat-the-intern...

I know the feeling, you're browsing around aimlessly, checking feeds, checking forums, etc. At some point you start getting that overwhelming feeling where you know you should be doing something productive, but it's just so easy to click one more link.

Here is the sequence I follow when I realize I've been up for 4 hours and still haven't gotten anything done yet:

- Eat something quick to prepare, if I haven't eaten yet. Watch Mixergy or something while I'm cooking/eating. This is the wind-down from "procrastination mode", and watching Mixergy reminds me that there are people out there busting their asses right now and taking all of my future customers or client dollars.

- Put on some good coding music. This puts my brain into "serious business" mode. I prefer energetic hip-hop or dubstep, something I can bop my head to and feel like a boss.

- Go through all my tabs, Pinboard and tag the ones I want to keep for later, and close all of the tabs that don't apply to what I should be working on.

- Take a post-it note and write down the 3 tasks I am going to accomplish today, come hell or high water.

- Get a coffee or energy drink, have a smoke (not recommended), and use the bathroom. Get my mental game plan together.

- Open Terminal and MacVim. This sets the stage.

- Pick a task that isn't on the post-it note (but needs to be done) that takes 10 minutes or less to bust out. Could be anything from a quick design fix to a wireframe or writing up a quick estimate. This is the warm-up.

- By this point, my brain is in full-on work mode. Jump in and tackle the work.

- Feel good. Eat dinner.

- Play Starcraft.

I had similar problem, for quite long time, and probably I still do from time to time.

What really worked for me was to schedule time offs when I simply don't do certain tasks online. It took some time to implement that and my mind was playing tricks with me all the time.

I decided that my mornings, until 9:00 and evenings, after 19:00 are offline times and I would only use internet in the case of emergency or if some project has to be finished on time.

I was trying to quit reading news completely but than I realized that considering that I'm running online business I can't really do that, I have to be on top of the things to make sure that our services are always up to date.

I limited my reading activities only on few sources, Tech Crunch, Hacker News, Twitter (following max 50 people) and Facebook (also max 50 people). I give myself only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening to go through my sources and to respond in some cases.

This was not easy to achieve, it's one kind of addiction and I even wrote a post about it few days ago, "How to deal with mental obesity" http://www.oceen.com/2011/04/01/podcast-information-overload...

Information overload is serious stuff but majority of people are still not aware of that. It's going to become one of the biggest problems in next decade and only way to fight it is to discipline yourself in same way as you discipline yourself with food.

As much as he's reviled on this site, Tim Ferris's suggestion (likely borrowed from someone else) has been a great tip. Each day, lay out 3 concrete items to get done. Then do them without interruption. You'll most likely be done with them by lunch. Then you can do pterosaur things the rest of the day. Surf if you're stuck in an office, go to the park if you work from home. By setting put concrete things and going about getting them done, you do them much faster than if you leave them nebulous with an indefinite time frame.

A must have:

http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/

Stop fucking around.

My biggest weakness is too many tabs. I tend to have 200+ tabs open in Chrome stuffed with my primary procrastination implement: must-read technology news. If I start picking through them to close/mark for later reading, I inevitably start reading and simply reboot the procrastination cycle.

My best antidote: have your IDE ready to work and close all your browser tabs at once.

P.S. You know you read too much Hacker News when you wake up from a dream in which PG rejected both your startup ideas for funding.

Block the sites that you waste too much time on.

I have a habit of loading news/discussion sites anytime I'm waiting for something to complete. Blocking the sites I use too much such as HN, Reddit, Craigslist etc. breaks my streaks of going to them, disrupting the habit. The 'site not available' message helps me refocus.

Try the Google Chrome extension StayFocusd. Its essentially a website timer that blocks time-wasting websites after a predetermined amount of time has expired. Good luck..

My solution has been this: don't take crappy breaks, take real ones. Your brain can only focus for so long, it's normal that it needs a break, so naturally you drift over to the web. However this is not a great break and doesn't really refresh you. When I'm working on a project and find myself browsing HN for to long, I just get up and go outside, go for a walk, take a shower (I work from home), take a quick nap, even read a book or something similar. In all of these cases I a.) actually feel refreshed when I'm done, b.) usually spend over all less time distracted, and most importantly c.) gain insight into the problem I'm trying to solve by ignoring it.

Many offices cultures require that you 'look busy' and web browsing is a crappy form of relaxation that unfortunately fits in with this well. If you give your brain moments to actually relax you'll get more done with in far less time. Web browsing when you really need a break is roughly the same thing is snacking on junk food when you really need a wholesome meal.

edit: One key thing I only implied is: leave the space your in. So for example playing a round of video games on the same machine your working on won't work, but (if you can avoid playing all afternoon) going another room to play xbox for 30mins probably will work.

Asking this on HN is not unlike asking in a drugs den how to quit crack-cocaine

Well, i didn't realize how much i was wasting on reading online(even though i had an idea) Then came across rescuetime got it installed and looking at the amount of time spent reading forced me to change a lot...now am a lot better. but still get into binges of old habits...

I'm worse, I come here dozens of times a day, seeking new stuff done by folks smarter than myself, and later blame myself about the time I spent online, and how much more I would have won if I had instead read a book on programming languages for the last few hours.

Get back to work!

I don't really consider myself an expert on getting things done, but I will suggest one thing. Take a day off every week. A day off the internet, a day off anything with a screen, and a day off anything which is about paid work. When you sit at your computer and think "maybe just a few more rage comics[1]" you're actually feeling a bit uninspired. sitting and staring at your computer is the worst way to achieve inspiration. instead, do the housework, bake, take up a hardware project, knit, read, do a correspondence course. anything that is unimportant to your day job, and pleasant, and nothing to do with those computerboxes.

When my day off is over I go back to my myriad projects and sit down and actually do them. It's much much much more productive than trying to work all the time. I actually suspect this is one of the major advantages of the sabbath in Abrahamic religions.

Oh, and use bookmarks. The blogosphere is much easier to forget about when you know you can find all the good stuff at a later date.

Like I say I'm no expert, but this helps me. I find that when I try to break the trend and work all week my mind quickly devolves into that of a dullard drone.

Best of luck breaking that habit!

[1] don't judge me :(

Why:

0. Not enough knowledge and/or lying to yourself

1. Subliminally trying to flee from taks, because you know it's going to take so much time again.

2. Trying to do something which gives you short term success by posting/chatting/helping etc.

How:

0. turnoff sound and your monitor!

1. read a programming book (offline) related to your project! yes do it some hours and have a tea/coffee

2. create a todo (offline) / (digitalize it much later)

3. Analyse your project and start coding now.

What:

0. I waste a very large amount of time for ("fun")

1. unquenchable thirst for things knowledgy

2. Not able to meet my time goals

3. Feeling lazy

Hope it helps

Don't forget HN's "noprocrast" setting. I bet it's often overlooked but I found it invaluable in breaking the habit of "cmd-t news.yco..."-ing.

I've started remedying this for myself.

What I did: Told myself not to go to Fark, Reddit, 4chan, or any adult websites. Slashdot, Drudgereport, and Hacker News were allowed for personal reasons (they have interesting content and news while filtering out a lot of low-value stuff. I also spend less time at the latter sites than the former). Results:

-Movies. I watched a few movies and TV shows. Doing this helped my mind relax, because information overload DOES happen.

-Programming: I got back into Scala, and have an idea for a fun project I want to start working on. For me, programming is a mental exercise and is my outlet for creativity.

-People: When I don't have long hours at work (IT, surprise), I hang out with friends more. This can quickly drain funds, though, so watch your spending.

-Sex: Abstaining from adult material on the web for a few days makes you more ready for a mate, if there's one available.

-Less distraction: No matter what I list above, they were all things I devoted all my attention to while I was doing it (especially the last one). Browsing tons of sites on the net for hours on end kills your focus on specific tasks (like having a life, or truly excelling at a task).

Basically, interesting stuff on the Internet is like fats and oils on the old food pyramid: delicious, and necessary in small amounts.

FOR YOU: Don't cut out every gluttonous activity you have. Start with the top two or three time-wasters, and start from there. Don't let yourself go to it at all. Cold turkey. Find other things to do when you get bored looking for articles.

I actually find "aimlessly" browsing the web less of a time sink than going to the few websites that truly suck me in.

Lately, I've been using an egg timer to stop working every twenty minutes and stretch. This has the side effect of forcing me to also consider whether the last twenty minutes were productive. That I'm here shows it's not perfect but I do think it has helped (both keeping my body more active and my computer activities more productive).

    $ while true; do sleep 20m; xmessage 'stretch' &; done

A significant and recurring step for myself has been recognizing that in my scramble to consume everything that seemed interesting I was trying to hoard something that's in rampant abundance.

You will never have enough time to dick around on the Internet, because there will always be new things that seem interesting. The most interesting thing in the world will be the thing you mark "Read Later" in the moments before you die. It never ends. You will.

What you've got to recognize in this is that "Does this seem interesting?" is not a good heuristic for reading / watching / listening / doing. It's the natural and intuitive one we're all equipped with, but it fails in a world of abundance. To get out of the trap you've got to internalize a rule more like "Do I need this for something?" or "Can I safely ignore this?" or "Am I going to act on this?"

Try it with the tabs you've got open right now and see how you feel.

- Try to only create and care. If I am not creating nor caring then it's probably a waste of time (create = code, draw, make music, solder etc... care = do yoga, train, clean the house, repair stuff around the house, garden, water the plants, cook food etc...)

- klip.me to read page later on my kindle (any page that has a lot of text I send it to my kindle so I can walk away from my computer once in a while to read about other stuff I want to do)

- 2 screen computer - one for watching stuff (video,web stuff) one for working, creating,producing

- Being clear and telling myself : It's been 30minutes that you check facebook photo aimlessly anything else you can do ?

- Do the dishes, clean the house, have so non computer task that needs to be done when too much procrastination happen

- Not feeling bad or guilty as it ends up making me wanting to do more aimless browsing

- Have a precise goal and passion in my life ;) If I am confuse about these I make mind map to see where I am at !

This is a classic procrastination story, but also a side effect of the 40-hour work-week. Would you still spend so much time surfing if you could go home when your work was done? Killing time eats into your free time, affects the quality of your work, and makes you feel lazy at the end of the day. The problem is not that you're reading all these articles; it's that you're reading them at the cost of your productivity. You'll enjoy this activity much more if you can do it after you know your day's work is done.

We're building LazyMeter to help with procrastination and overwhelming to-do lists. LazyMeter filters each user's overwhelming to-do list into a today list, so that they have an achievable goal each day, with an end point, and then tracks their progress so you can see how much they've done. Our users know exactly what they need to focus on, and can recognize when they're killing time. As a result, they know what to do, they know when they're done, and they feel better at the end of the day. We're now in beta and would love to get your feedback. http://www.LazyMeter.com

Buy an iPad.

Clear your computer's history/cookies, and never use it for distracting/unproductive sites again. Use the iPad exclusively for your unproductive browsing going forward (preferably in a different physical location).

You will be amazed at how quickly it pays for itself (and the browsing experience is better too).