

Ask HN:  How to Make Twitter & HN Less like Crack Cocaine? - rcavezza

I find it difficult to find time to code because I frequently check out Twitter or HN many times throughout the day.<p>What apps or tricks do you guys use to make HN &#38; Twitter seem less like crack cocaine?
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Andrew-Dufresne
HN offers Anti-procrastination feature which is fairly good to make it less
like 'crack cocaine'.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html> _7 Nov: Anti-procrastination features
Like email, social news sites can be dangerously addictive. So the latest
version of Hacker News has a feature to let you limit your use of the site.
There are three new fields in your profile, noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway.
(You can edit your profile by clicking on your username.) Noprocrast is turned
off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to "yes," you'll only be
allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway
minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the
site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You
can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts
over at zero._

In any case, I don't think HN _addiction_ is harmful, unless one uses it as an
excuse to put off his responsibilities.

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hoag
Doesn't HN have an anti-crack mode you can activate? :) As for twitter, you're
left to your own devices of self-control and common sense, I suppose. :)

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user24
noprocrast is a great feature. Wish other sites added it.

There's Chrome nanny or Leechblock for Firefox; plugins which take a blacklist
and blocks you from visiting those sites for a certain amount of time, or at
certain times of day. I used it for a while and it really helps.

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hvs
Turn on noprocrast in your settings.

