
Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack - twampss
http://al3x.net/2009/09/14/my-get-back-to-work-hack.html
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btw0
I wrote a shell script that controls and logs your internet usage, hope
someone will find it useful.

netctrl script: <http://gist.github.com/187318>

Basically you set up a cron job (use "netctrl -c") to take your computer
online and offline at sometime automatically, and when you want to use
internet when you are not supposed to, you have to specify a reason to do so
(use "netctrl -u"), and the reason is logged.

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mrlebowski
This is exactly what I would love to use, sadly won't work with Vista :(

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pxlpshr
Pretty cool app I found for Mac. <http://getconcentrating.com>

_Concentrate helps you work and study more productively by eliminating
distractions.

To start, create an activity (design, study, write, etc) and choose actions
(shown below) to run every time you concentrate. When ready, just click
“concentrate." All your distractions will disappear and a timer will appear to
help you stay focused._

~~~
mrtron
I use it - even tried to buy it but my credit card was rejected.

Works great for me. The only added feature I would like is to be able to
schedule activities, ie. 9-5 daily block distractions.

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jreposa
So, everytime I take a break and actually don't mind wasting time on reddit, I
have to comment out parts of my /etc/hosts ?

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tiredandempty
you can have two /etc/hosts (hosts - hosts.restricted), and a script switches
each.

implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.

~~~
run4yourlives
Or you can just install rescue time. I think this is a new feature now.

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edw519
My Keep-Working Hack: 2 computers. One for work. One for internet. In
different rooms. An egg timer. 48 minutes of work. 12 minutes of break.

[http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power-
of...](http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power-
of-48-minutes/)

<http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html>

~~~
unalone
That works for those of us with two computers. I wish there was a way of
routinely disabling the Internet, rather than having me manually do it.

~~~
vilya
If you're on a Mac, check out Freedom: <http://macfreedom.com/>

It does exactly what you want. I think I first heard about it on a HN thread a
while ago...

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unalone
Problem with Freedom is I have to manually activate it. I never do.

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reedlaw
How about just get back to work instead of spending time on this hack? That
would save you at least 15 minutes.

~~~
jacquesm
I think to call this a 'hack' is to devaluate the term.

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wave
Instead of blocking the distracting sites permanently, using iptables might
work little better by restricting access by time of day or duration.

[edit] I found the following: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192953>

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3pt14159
I use rescue time. It is amazing. Having fun to do work also helps. Well that
is it for this comment, I need to get back to work.

~~~
jonknee
I wish it would work with Snow Leopard. Crashes on startup for me (even the
special Snow Leopard version they posted).

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thirdstation
I think about money going into my bank account. Makes the distractions seem
more expensive (I'm currently salaried and it still works).

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figital
I drag the favicon of my current project to the home button (to set it as my
home page). Everytime I open a new browser window I am reminded of what I
should really be doing.

When that task is finished, I change the home page to the next task.

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erso
Every time I see something like this I'm reminded of the idea of trying stop
drug addicts by maEvery time I see something like this I'm reminded of the
idea of trying stop drug addicts by making drugs harder to get. Somehow, some
way, you're going to get the drug.

The problem is not to restrict your access, but to change your desire. There's
a much deeper problem if you require hand-slapping to stop you viewing sites
like reddit while at work.

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tlrobinson
Is there any way to do this without changing the user Apache runs as? I'm
having problems with that...

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arohner
My hack: run bittorrent during work time. Every site gets a lot slower. For
me, the increase in latency makes distractions less enjoyable, but full access
is still there if I really need it. On a few occasions, I've found important
work-related stuff on HN.

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warfangle
Psst. Why is al3x.net loading an external gif every 20 seconds? It's
distracting to see my browser indicate that it's loading something when I
didn't interact with anything :)

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dsplittgerber
Spending hours or minutes working out yet another restriction on distractions
instead of learning how to focus and concentrate properly? What good can this
possibly ever do.

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mrduncan
The best get-back-to-work hack I've ever had is to work on something that
interests you. If you're able to do that, you won't need any hacks.

~~~
sophacles
That is disingenuous. In any job/work, even if you love it, there are tasks
that blow. Documentation, bug hunting, administrivia, the boilerplate crap
that crops up are all examples of this. Some or all of them are required, and
since they are not fun, it is easy to get distracted and procrastinate. Some
people are just prone to such things. Is it not better that they figure out
how to not procrastinate, or that they search for the elusive (possibly
mythical) work that has 0% sucky tasks?

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ptn
Even better would be if when you tried to open a web that's a distraction, the
browser opened your text editor.

I'm kinda dreaming...

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Timothee
It's kind of what Alex's setup is doing by opening Things.

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_giu
I use a proxy (Pivoxy) to block requests to distracting sites. not the most
effective method, but it works pretty good for me.

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untitledz
my hax: [http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/the-coworking-
pact...](http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/the-coworking-pact/)
[http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/dont-cowork-
pair-p...](http://untitledz.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/dont-cowork-pair-
program/)

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prakash
Why do all that, why not use freedom? <http://macfreedom.com/>

~~~
Psyonic
While this is no doubt useful, its hilarious that something that actually
removes a feature from your computer is being billed as "the most wonderful
software ever invented." (not by you, by someone quoted on their homepage.)

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mrtron
Concentrate app for mac users breaks the procrastination cycle.

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mdg
I do something similar. I use LeechBlock, an add-on for Firefox. I have it set
to let me view sites, such as HN, before 7:30 (a reward for getting in early),
during lunch (hopefully, that means between 11:30-Noon:30), and after 4:30
(brain is probably mush at this point anyways). LeechBlock even lets you
redirect to a different site instead of a blacklisted one. I picked my
companies web site. I must say, I have conditioned myself doing this. The urge
to check time-sinks have dropped significantly since I have been doing this.

After reading this, I feel editing /etc/hosts is a better option.

