

Ask HN: Addicted to HN - ashitvora

These days I see myself spending a lot of time on HN.<p>It's good spend an hour or so to learn something new and interesting but I sometimes spend too much time on it and then I don't have time left to work on my projects.<p>Has any of you faced this problem? How did you overcome it?
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jacquesm
I used to worry that I spend too much time here, then the pay-offs started
coming in and now I don't worry about it any more.

I have found:

    
    
      - people to work with
    
      - concrete knowledge that I didn't even know I was missing
    
      - instant help
    
      - advertisers
    
      - friends
    

Through HN, which is more than I can say for any other online community that
I've ever been a part of.

And all that for 'free', if you don't count the time spent on it. If you would
count the time then the 'investment' side of it (I estimated that at roughly 4
months full time) at a 'regular' salary (say 100K per year) would equate to
about $30K, I would say I'm more than break-even already in a direct monetary
sense but that's not where the real value is, the real value is in the
increase of your potential by being able to tap in to this resource.

Time spent on HN to me is now a form of investment with a completely unknown
return, both in kind and magnitude and I don't mind spending time to give
others back the same that I have received.

HN is a pay-it-forward scheme if you 'use' it properly.

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wyclif
Visit HN less by using utilities like <http://hckrnews.com/> so you don't miss
the stories you learn the most from.

~~~
stoney
Also <http://hnrecap.com> \- you can get the day/week/months top stories in
one visit.

~~~
ashitvora
This is awesome. I like the integration with Instapaper. Lately I have been
using Instrapaper alot.

Thanks :)

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stoney
There's the no procrast settings, or alternatively there is your hosts file
(C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on windows). I added the following line
to mine:

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

That means that if I open a browser and try to come here I get nothing. If I
really want to visit here I need to open up the hosts file and comment out
that line, which is slightly painful because you have to get administrator
privileges to edit it. I find that the extra effort involved is enough to stop
the mindless "I'm bored, I know, I'll check HN" kind of time wasting and make
me realise I should be doing something productive.

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binarymax
Turn on no procrast in your account settings.

~~~
revorad
noprocast only stops you from posting. You can still waste hours reading. In
fact, you can also post even with noprocast on (figuring out how is left as an
exercise to the reader. you have 30 secs).

The only solution I find that really works is to get more involved and make it
a point to post good comments. If I feel bad about not participating in HN
well, either it makes me write good comments and have new insights or get back
to work. I've also started taking notes on my blog from articles and
discussions I find interesting.

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hkuo
Keep your eye onthe prize! Corny, I know, but maybe just remind yourself every
once in a while whats important. When you let your body and mind fall
naturally to what it's attracted to, you can end up on a site like this or
reddit or the like for a long time, but if you pause for a second and think
about what you could be doing instead, you might pass on spending time here
and doing some work.

------
fzort
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d news.ycombinator.com -j DROP

