Get-shit-done - Easy way to stop distractions (github.com)

The only problem with this method is that if you modify your hosts file, you have to modify both.

  all:
      cat hosts.common hosts.work.in > hosts.work
      cat hosts.common hosts.play.in > hosts.play

  play:
     cat hosts.play | sudo tee /etc/hosts > /dev/null

  work:
     cat hosts.work | sudo tee /etc/hosts > /dev/null

I did this in the past too. The amazing thing is that it actually cures the addiction, not just the symptoms. On the first day you find yourself clicking on the reddit bookmark like an idiot every 20 mins, only to be redirected to localhost. After a few days the impulse is gone and you can actually go back to a non censured /etc/hosts: your self control is back. YMMV.

Does this work with Chrome? I believe Chrome does it's own dns resolution and skips the host file. (I defiantly know it won't resolve localhost if you're offline)

When I am working on Linux I do the same thing, except I have cron job copy hosts.work to hosts at 9am(insert your favorite get to work time) and hosts.play at 5pm. Works really well.

I wonder if one can do the same on Windows 7, some way of scheduling tasks easily.

You should be able to use an asynchronous cron scheduler to implement something like Pomodoro with this. Combined with the right notification tool this could work quite well.

Use FreeBSD, set the kernlevel to something above the minimum, and add the flags to the file so it can't be changed, then until you reboot you won't be able to modify the hosts file =)

StayFocusd for Chrome Users - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfm...

latest version has a neat feature which tracks links from blocked pages. Ie if I give myself 15 mins of HN a day, but end up wasting 2 hours because I only spend 10 secs on HN opening up tabs to read, it now tracks that. Any links you click from HN will count towards your time limit.

leechblock has helped my compulsive reddit habit :/

Also if anyone wants to hack on it, SelfControl is on Github: https://github.com/slambert/selfcontrol

One of the best features is that it runs on a timer and you can't cancel it prematurely. Even if you restart.

Unfortunately you can just right click and disable extensions on chrome. Since the exit barrier is so low, I was always able to exit even when I shouldn't have.

I found it useful to force myself to manually comment/uncomment lines in my hosts file. It gives a critical few moments for a bit of humiliation to set in, as you realize how desperate you are for diversion. On the other end, it gives a moment to mentally pat yourself on the back for eliminating the distractions.

>if (like me) HN is your distraction of choice and you have minimal technical skills.

this is a small and interesting portion of mindspace

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.

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.

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".

You may be right. But repeating an action forms a habit, or in this case learning to not repeatedly open up HN or Reddit can become a long-term habit for anyone with the right mindset.

Yep, beware I didn't even tested it:

    #!/usr/bin/env zsh

    (($#<1)) && {
        print -- "usage: $0:t (play|work)"
            exit 1
    }>&2
    blacklist=(
            reddit.com
            ycombinator.com
            slashdot.com
            )

    hostfile=/etc/host

    if [[ $1 = "play" ]]; then
        if [[ ! -e $hostfile.orig ]]; then
            cp $hostfile{,.orig}
        else
            print -- "You're already playin" >&2
            exit 1
        fi
        cp $hostfile{.orig,}
        for elem in $blacklist; do
            print -- "127.0.0.1\t$elem" >> /etc/host
            print -- "127.0.0.1\twww.$elem" >> /etc/host
        done
    fi

    if [[ $1 = "work" ]]; then
        cp $hostfile{.orig,}
        \rm $hostfile.orig
    fi

    /etc/init.d/networking restart

Similar to this, I use eternity time tracker on my iphone to work in 30 minute intervals. During the interval, no email, news sites etc. It has worked really well for me.

It was a sad day when Red Hat removed the insults from sudo.

> Managed to waste a whole day on that one

I love the irony.

Firefox's AwesomeBar makes this hard. Hacker News is just a 'control-t y tab enter' away.

I don't even use bookmarks because it would take longer to click a bookmark than typing "n" for HN (or "r" for reddit or "f" for facebook) and letting Chrome auto-complete and pressing enter, so this wouldn't help me that much.

Curious, how do you permanently block the sites?