
Don't Worry About Your Productivity, Worry About You - Nathanael
http://nathanael.hevenet.com/dont-worry-about-your-productivity-worry-about-you/
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suhastech
For good or bad, I can't express how much of changed person I'm due to Hacker
News. It has taught me to question dogma wherever I can, that has given me a
better understanding of how the world works, in other words, getting the birds
eye view seat of the world.

So, at my current standing, procrastination is good.

Or quite simply, as they say "too much of everything is bad" applies to
procrastination and everything in general.

~~~
Centigonal
I like that angle! My personal rule of thumb is that when I know a community
well enough to predict what the contents of a given comment thread will be,
then I've learned most of what I can from my experience there.

------
hnriot
Anyone that blogs about giving up the Internet is doomed to failure and will
realize the stupidity of it soon enough. Life isn't about productivity, these
days being cut off from the Internet is to alienate contemporary society,
there's nothing inherently better about reading books than hackernews. There
is a place for both.

Whenever I read about someone that beleives that extreme and drastic measures
are required it nearly always points to other more subtle issues that the
escapism is happily providing distraction from.

This is just attention seeking.

~~~
Volpe
> This is just attention seeking.

Your comment, or the OP?

People are welcome to try whatever they like to make themselves happier, and
I'm glad people are happy to share their experience with the world.

You seem to have a bunch of predetermined ideas on what life is about. And
that's great. But don't preach them like they are universal truth:

"Life isn't about productivity" _to you_

"..these days being cut off from the Internet is to alienate contemporary
society..." _for you_

"There is a place for both." _for you_

~~~
gizzlon

         "..these days being cut off from the Internet is to alienate contemporary society..." for you
    

actually, GP's statement is true for most people "in the west", adding "for
you" is just silly..

~~~
Volpe
A bit silly... except you replaced it with another qualification that
essentially says the same thing.

\- Most people don't live "in the west".

\- Thus universal truths, better apply to them too!

~~~
gizzlon
Some context is implied in all communication. Most people who read HN do, and
more to the point, they have an Internet connection and loosing that would
alienate them from contemporary society.

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kiba
How to make productive use of your time: get something out of what you read
other than enjoyment.

For example, I begun keeping a summary on substantive link so that I build up
a list of citations and information that I can use to write essays. I want to
make it a habit that I will do this once a day, but it's not the time for
adding yet another habit to my list of ever growing habits. (I add a new habit
about every 21 days)

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denova
He's right that filling every spare moment with compulsive news-checking and
fast content consumption is distracting and stressful, but there's no reason
he can't apply focus and deliberation to his surfing habits just like he did
for other areas of his life. Indulge in the things you enjoy, and when you
feel them becoming compulsive, cut back. For me, ditching the web would have a
profoundly alienating effect on my psyche.

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NameNickHN
If the cut-off from reddit and hacker news works for the op, then good. But as
a general advice it sucks. Reddit and hacker news are both useful and fun. Why
get rid of it? The trick is to balance things out, not swinging the axe.

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OhArgh
I used to have the Gmail and facebook plugin for chrome. Once I removed them I
was a lot more focused. Before as soon as a notification came through I'd
check it. Now I only check them a couple of times a day.

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dgbsco
These things you speak of are tools, and yes in excess they can hinder more
than help.

There's something to be said about staying connected, and giving your mind
mental breaks now and again.

The key is moderation.

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razfar
I have also been trying to slow down and it has had a profound effect on my
overal performance and happiness. I think cutting out youtube and hacker news
is a bit much though.

~~~
buzzkillr2
Cutting them out completely might be a little much. Limiting them is a great
idea to be productive is a good idea though.

~~~
Danieru
HN has perhaps had the least impact on my productivity of any site I've been
addicted to. HN's procrast setting makes the addiction quite manageable in
fact. If you set the timeout to integer hours between 5 minute blocks lost
productivity is minimized.

What I find is I'll open ~5 comment sections, read, then leave for 2 hours. By
the time I get back a significant portion of links have been replaced. Rinse
and repeat. The key mechanism is the timeout forces me to break out of zombie
reading and refocus on programming.

I would encourage anyone with a self-diagnosed HN addiction to turn on
procrast.

