

Tell HN: I blocked HN, etc. during work today. It was a whole new world. Try it - falsestprophet
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476

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webwright
Chris Sacca (awesome guy and investor in a few YC companies, including ours)
said to us something like, "People have these moments of strength where they
can say something like, 'block me from this site so I can focus' and they have
moments of weakness where they break down and try to go to that site."

RescueTime will have this feature pretty soon where you can voluntarily block
or limit distracting stuff on a voluntary basis IN ANY BROWSER.

[https://www.rescuetime.com/blocked/url/http://news.ycombinat...](https://www.rescuetime.com/blocked/url/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

There's an example block page that you'd see if you blocked Hacker News (we
have a few custom ones in the works).

~~~
fallentimes
I love that picture:

<http://danhau.posterous.com/our-fearless-investor-paul-gra>

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basugasubaku
I tried this last week but found myself browsing in a VM so finally decided to
just not fight it.

So if you do want to try this, make sure you block all possible ways you can
access the sites (various browsers, various VMs). Kind of a pain.

~~~
brown9-2
This story is astonishing.

You were successful at preventing yourself from browsing from your main
machine, but fired up a a virtual machine to circumvent yourself?

~~~
basugasubaku
I always am running the VM anyway (Linux guest on Windows host); it's not like
I started it just to browse. Just saying if you feel the need to block
yourself programmatically you probably need to do so on all routes by which
you can reasonably access the sites, e.g., various browsers and various VMs.

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derwiki
A year ago, I tried the same thing, and I agreed with what you're saying. Then
I got rid of it. Then I started using Instapaper to browse and read things
later. Then I stopped doing that.

Then I got a job that I didn't hate. I don't accidentally waste too much time
on HN anymore :)

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harpastum
A great app for OS X that will block all connections to a specific server for
a specific length of time (not just in firefox) is Self Control:
<http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/>

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indiejade
Interesting. It is similar to the "noprocrast" feature on YCN, but applicable
to a variety of sites. Nice work!

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matthew-wegner
Is it _that_ hard to spend fewer hours at work and more, guilt-free time doing
your own thing later? We run regular M-Thu 10:00-3:30 production hours. The
trade-off, of course, is that people agree to save Twitter/RSS/browsing for
their own time at home. We get a lot done.

~~~
Psyonic
M-Th 10:0-3:30? Sure, I won't open a social website. M-F 8:30-5:00? Different
story

~~~
matthew-wegner
That's 10:00am to 3:30pm (just making sure you didn't think it was 10pm-3am).

~~~
sparky
I think his point is that not everybody can set their own hours that way.

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callmeed
No

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tjic
Agreed; I block sites from myself, and my increase in productivity (and
morale) is amazing.

I use this plugin instead:

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145>

You can turn on password protection, so that you can't turn off the plugin.

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jamesbritt
One useful side-effect of a time-tracking tool such as JotBot (note: I'm the
developer) is that it routinely prompts me for input on what I'm doing.

Now, that sort of thing can be annoying to some (as opposed to some passive
activity tracker), but the upside is that it makes me aware of when I'm
dicking around _at the time I'm doing it_ , rather than at the end of the day
when it's too late to correct it.

I've tried blocking tools; hated them. I'd rather be allowed to make these
decisions, but with a nudge that reminds me when maybe I'm getting too
distracted.

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sankara
Most sites that I read are through RSS feeds in a desktop client (Newsgator).
My RSS client typically remains shut during the work day (except for those
occasional really boring moments). That way I don't miss anything neither do I
"waste" time. I make it a habit to catch up in the night or before starting to
work. An empty RSS feed would make sure I don't get distracted and let me feel
contented as well.

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tdavis
I found the only time this was remotely rewarding was when I noticed I hadn't
checked HN for an entire day because I was just too wrapped up in work.

Plus, I have way too many browsers installed for a Firefox addon to ever stop
me. I don't even _use_ Firefox as my primary browser.

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yread
hmm browser plugin is ok. But I have like 6 browsers installed and sometimes I
REALLY want to see it :)

I use hosts file, but I haven't put HN there just yet. Just most of the news
site (so I can only access the really crappy ones with boring articles). Hosts
file works for virtual machine as well since I used a bridged connection :)

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chanux
I used HNs built in productivity features (No procrast, min away) during exam
days it was quite good.

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Keyframe
I can't do it. I just can't.

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ruddzw
Do people really have such little self-control that they need to block a
particular internet site via a tool like this? Just don't type
news.ycombinator.com or click your bookmark for it. Simple as that.

~~~
falsestprophet
I don't think this is a question of self-control. I noticed (only after I
installed this plug-in) that sometimes when I got frustrated with a problem I
would type in news.ycombinator.com by habit.

Breaking that habit definitely helped my cause.

~~~
aswanson
Exactly, almost like you need the endorphin so you rush to the easiest source
of satisfaction. Probably similar to a smoking or eating habit, you just need
an easy win so you click on the site. Same here.

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xenophanes
Why did you block them instead of just not visit them?

~~~
bkovitz
You have asked a truly profound question. I don't know the answer, but it's
got something to do with how brains work.

This might be relevant: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_function>

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clistctrl
my hosts file is riddled with all the sites i visit on a regular basis.. in
fact just today I had enabled everything (except my personal email) it's
interesting because i found myself checking my email once every 10 seconds for
lack of any other site to go to. Sometimes its really hard to get motivated to
work on a project you hate.

