I've found that it never works long-term. Your habits just adjust to the new situation. Every year ('cept the last couple, when I've been working) I go on vacation for 2-3 weeks to my parents' summer cottage, where there is no Internet access, no cell reception, not even a touch-tone phone. I find that I'm super productive for about the first 3 days, and then I end up playing a lot of Hearts.
Without the different environment, the effect is even shorter-lived. I had a paper due once in college. Knowing that I wasn't about to do it, I handed my Ethernet cord to a friend and said "Don't let me have this back until tomorrow." And - as ridiculous as the article suggests it is - I sat at my desk doing absolutely nothing all night. Really. I was basically staring off into space the whole time.
The only thing that seems to work for me is to make whatever I'm working on significantly more fun than what I should be doing. So for example, I got a ton done on my startup between 3/15 and 4/10 because I said "Okay, I'll just put off my taxes until after my startup's in better shape." And then my taxes got done with no fuss because I was really burned out from all that coding, and filling out a few tax forms actually seemed more enjoyable than writing another line of code. This is another plus of living with parents: they give you chores, so you can say "Yeah, I'll run to the post office for you, just let me finish this feature."
BTW, I didn't quit watching TV by any conscious act of willpower; I quit because I got addicted to MMORPGs. And then I quit MMORPGs because I got addicted to Starcraft, and then I quit StarCraft because I got addicted to HP fanfiction, then I quit fandom because I got addicted to computer websites. A distraction never seems to go away until you find something to replace it with.
My ex-wife left me for her WoW guild leader. It's a rather addictive game, but I wouldn't exactly categorize it as social, because the 'social' atmosphere evaporates as soon as you quit the game. Social as long as you keep playing, perhaps, like drug addicts' societies, or IRC.
As for avoiding distractions, I agree with Paul that the Internet is like crack, it's really bad. Like Paul, I never watched TV. (As an aside, I think the reason most people are so dumb is because they watch a lot of TV). The Internet is like TV -- it makes one dumb, it's like crack, but it's also unavoidable when working as a programmer. I used to deal with the Internet by removing the wireless card from the laptop, and physically walking to my 'work location', which didn't have a LAN port, to get work done.
The problem with that now is that I need to use the Internet frequently to SSH into servers, download libraries, programs, and so forth, simply to get work done. I suppose I only have about 15 libraries that I use with the typical program that I'm writing. So maybe the overhead cost of me browsing the Internet and wasting time doing so is high enough that it would be better to go back to the old setup.
This is the thing that nobody seems to have mentioned - both about WoW and HN: they're very different from watching TV. They're both inherently social, for example.
HN is much more akin to what sports fans do at sports bars (but asynchronous and otherwise more efficient). How much time is "too much time" to spend here depends on what else is going on in your life, but it's definitely not something to shun altogether (like cable TV).
WoW is also very different from TV - I haven't played since high school, but I remember it requiring quite a bit of interpersonal skill to organize and lead 40-man raids: settling people's personal issues, coordinating teams, etc. Maybe I romanticized it (as I did most things in high school), but I'd imagine that the kind of teamwork one learns from being in a large guild doing end-game raids comes in really useful in any organization.
yeah. It's still reading, and most of it is either educational or pseudo educational. Well.. at least if you waste your time where I waste mine. HN, Slasdot, Linux Today, Free Software Daily, Freenode (irc), etc.
However, I should be coding my app. I've spent most of the day working on a mock up so it's ok to spend a few minute here right?
The procrastination thing puts you in good company: Andrew Tridgell apparently created Samba as a way of procrastinating while working on rsync for his doctoral thesis.
I'm particularly interested on your take on various forms of distractions, given your response to my question about frustration.
Distraction can be used to kill frustration, but there's likely a secret, a skill, or a science in utilizing it, in the sense that it takes your mind off of something enough to change your approach, reinvigorate your interest, or whatever.
You talked about working on completely irrelevant projects for "long" periods of time. That somewhat qualifies as a thorough distraction. But then you say something like you find yourself return with greater competence [1]. From experience, have you found a good strategy? As in, magnitude of problem vs. type/duration of distraction?
I'm further interested in anybody else's "skillful use of distraction"; do share :-)
Something I realized after I wrote that comment: all the side-projects mentioned used the same toolset as the main project, but used it for a different purpose. So for example:
1.) Scrutiny was a quick PHP-based course evaluation system, done entirely when I should've been working on a large PHP rewrite of a HP fanfiction site. It took 2 weeks, vs. 3 years for FictionAlley (all part time).
2.) Bootstrapacitor was a quick web.py app, done when I was trying to do the layout for Diffle.com (also web.py) and feeling pretty overwhelmed by the HTML/CSS aspect (I'd never done my own layouts before). It took 3 weeks, vs. 5 months for Diffle - in particular, the Bootstrapacitor layout was very, very simple, because I wanted it to be done quickly. When I came back to do the CSS for Diffle, it was really easy, and I was done in a week or so.
3.) ArcLite is a JavaScript interpreter, done when I was feeling burnt out from building JavaScript UI widgets for GameClay. It took 1 week vs. 8 months so far for GameClay. (GameClay has many parts besides the JavaScript UI though; I'd estimate I've only spent 2-3 months on JavaScript aspects, the rest being Python & Flash.)
4.) Randomicity was a Django app built soon after converting GameClay to Django, but before I've built significant amounts of GameClay code in Django. Took about a week or two, vs. 2-3 weeks spent on the Django part of GameClay.
Also, all of the projects I was procrastinating on were first major projects with that toolset, and all the side projects were under about 1-2k lines. (If I ever start a blog, I want to do an entry about the "no-man's land of software" - it seems like anything up to about 2k lines is quite easy and can be done in a week or so, then there's a giant no-man's land up to about 20k lines where it's really difficult to make progress, and then after that it gets easier again.)
I'm not sure what to make of this, but one hypothesis is that procrastination is actually a subconscious lack of competence. If you address the underlying skill deficit and then give it a rest, the project becomes fun again. (Assuming that the project is useful - I didn't avoid all that homework in school because I didn't know how to do it, I avoided it because it was pointless.) By working on a side project, I had a chance to consolidate and assimilate all the knowledge I'd gained from beating my head against the original problem. It's much like the effect of sleep: you know how when you work really hard at a difficult mental problem, get nowhere, and then sleep on it, the answer often comes naturally in the morning? This is a case of working really hard for months at a time, then switching gears and doing something easy but related for a short period of time, then coming back and finding that what was previously hard is significantly easier.
I have friends in physics grad programs that have noticed a similar effect. The physics curriculum in my undergrad college was setup like a spiral - you would do mechanics, then E&M, then thermodynamics, then quantum, then you'd return to mechanics at a higher mathematical level, then intermediate E&M, then intermediate quantum, then advanced E&M, etc. Now my friends are doing quantum field theory and find that the Lagrangians we slaved over as undergrads are trivial.
The Suzuki method of teaching violin is similar, too. The books are setup so that you have a couple easy pieces, then one really hard piece, then a few more easy pieces so you can relax and assimilate everything you've learned, then another hard piece and so on.
"[P]rocrastination is actually a subconscious lack of competence."
I agree, I think a sense of "perceived incompetence", insecurity and confusion can lead to procrastination.
Trying to define a problem well, or breaking it into smaller ones, can help a lot. The same logic can be applied to projects.
Keeping up with Reddit and HN can also lead to frustration (yes I see the irony :), there's so much happening in web development. If only there were a way to ignore fads and keep up with the really important trends...
I like this guys idea's on procrastination. I've been using it today I think. I should be doing homework. Instead, I've been working on my supposedly less important (definitely less urgent) startup. I've also been avoiding that business plan I want to write.
> The only thing that seems to work for me is to make whatever I'm working on significantly more fun than what I should be doing.
That's very true. Having two or more tasks at hand is always key, so that you can do the least intimidating of the two. The downside to this approach is that sometimes you really do need to do the more intimidating one.
I assume you've read Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy by now, since just about everyone has. If not...well, I think it's been pulled off the Internet since the author got published with real books...
There's also Nemesis's I Am Lord Voldemort (http://www.spookamania.com/Quills/viewstory.php?sid=36), which is a little amateurish but still a pretty good story. The author's actually incredibly ashamed of it (she wrote it when she was 13), but it's better than anything I could do now...
I'm going to say something unpopular now, so be warned.
Is wasting time on..TV, MMORPGs, the Internet, senseless magazines etc. really that much of a problem for us as individuals? Procrastinating obviously robs time from "useful" activities like working, but how much use are these activities, really? Work applied correctly certainly brings humanity as a whole to new and better pastures, but I'm wondering whether this is really the case for me as an individual.
Personally, I find it very pleasant to waste time. If I don't have anything in particular to do (when I'm on vacation, for instance), I get bored with whatever time-sinks I have in about two weeks and quickly move on to something that brings me forward as a person. But if there are demanding activities occupying my mind - when I study, or learn a new skill, or have a job - wasting time seems to become a natural and healthy part of my life. Four hours a day seems like a good ballpark figure - according to this I spend 28 hours every week doing nothing, in addition to whatever useful things I do the rest of the time. I fail to see how this is a problem.
To me it seems as if recreation naturally follows from any demanding activity. If you get 8 hours of real work done every day, what is the problem if another four are spent doing nothing? Or even if you only get four hours of real work done every day, or two, you will still produce more wealth than an average Joe would be able to produce 80 years ago. I guess what I'm questioning is the aspiration of being great if you don't find it natural.
Doesn't this apply even, as PG writes in "How to do what you love", if your work is the most interesting and rewarding part of your life? Even great minds need rest.
This is a good point. I don't mean to imply one should do nothing but work. The problem with many types of procrastination is that they're not even all that fun.
I think the right thing to do is when you work, really work, and when you're just having fun, really have fun.
> The problem with many types of procrastination is that they're not even all that fun.
There was a period in my life, at my first job, where I was so fed up and bored with what I was supposed to be working on that I just avoided it by surfing the net all day, for months. You would think that goofing off all day on the internet and getting paid for it would be fun, but honestly it made things even worse.
Procrastination seems to be like a drug... it can be refreshing (or at least not painful) in small doses, but after a while you just get strung out and depressed. I had this huge weight over my head about what I "should be doing," but absolutely no motivation to actually do it. It took a conscious act of avoiding my web browser to stop that pattern of self-destructive behavior and get some work done again.
So yeah, anyway, just wanted to add my data point. Procrastinating can often make your mental well being worse off, by throwing in guilt on top of whatever was bothering you in the first place.
I was also wondering whether web surfing is really a "waste of time". Would I be better off if I had never come to this site, never read hacker news comments and pg essays and using all this "wasted" time to become better in a programming language, instead? I know, you will probably be more succesful if you stay focused but there is so much interesting information in the internet and what the hell, you only leave once.
The problem is that for most of us those four hours you feel ok about spending doing nothing are the only hours of the day that can be used for appreciably changing your life. For most employees those four hours are all their non-work hours that are truly discretionary and awake. If they don't use those productively they will be employees all their life until they retire. By then they will probably have forgotten what they really wanted to do in life and perhaps be too tired, run down, and or poor to do anything about it if they do remember or discover it.
If you are doing what you really want to do in your "work life" then I could see it. But if you are really doing what you want to do I sort of doubt that their are 4 hours a day that you could do something with that you would blow doing something other than "what you really want to do". We are not talking hobbies, keeping up with literature, exploring interesting things here so much as like sitting in front of the Tube or the equivalent, vegging.
I've found that I get sucked into severe surfing mostly when I'm unhappy. Like when I move to a new city and don't know anyone, or broke up with a girlfriend, or had a shitty job, or have some looming deadline for work that I have zero interest in.
About a month ago, we started having severe problems at the startup I work for. The finances are a total mess and the boss has been irrationally taking it out on a couple other employees who are friends of mine. What's ultimately going to happen is a bunch of people are going to leave en masse, and if I don't go with them, I'm going to be stuck cleaning up the mess they left behind. After learning this, it sort of feels futile to do anything at work, and subsequently my hacker news karma has finally passed 1000! It leaks out into the rest of my life, too. I feel pretty stupid that I quit my old startup to work at this one. I really should be looking for a new job, or working on a startup idea of my own. However, general fear and bummed-outedness has been steering me to instead do stuff like stay up until 4AM reading the entire blog archives of all my favorite female musicians.
Maybe a bit too personal and self-helpy, but I haven't ever felt like I was wasting too much time online when everything else in my life was going smoothly. On the other hand, maybe internet time-wasting is an unavoidable job hazard of a VC who funds a lot of fun projects.
I think part of the problem for me is having gone through public school. When you're 13, sneaking out of the lunch room to read Slashdot in the library is literally the most productive thing you could be doing during that time period. Even in high school I would have learned more by reading Reddit, had it existed, than by doing most of the homework I was assigned. The basic issue is that when you're in school you're basically forcibly prevented from doing anything productive, so the best possible outcome is to try to learn something. But at that age, when you're still young and don't know that much, you can actually learn more from surfing the web than from anything that goes on in the classroom. (School did so much to suck the joy out of reading that reading was simply out of the question for a good five year chunk of my life.)
I think the real issue is learning to realize when A) you now have the freedom to do productive things, so surfing the web is no longer a good use of your time and B) you've outgrown a given discourse group and hanging out with a certain crowd is no longer a productive use of your time. But for some reason internalizing these things is a really difficult thing to do.
Yes, but how will assigning blame help you solve the problem? You have a problem, you know the solution, and you keep maintaining the problem because you perceive this problem as not being your fault, but somehow the fault of external factors.
Most problems exist in isolation of their causes. Let's say you have a flat tire on the highway. Sure, it would be interesting to know how it happened, but that has nothing to do with the problem. The problem is that you are on a highway with a flat tire. The solution is to fix the flat tire. How it happened is not relevant.
"You have a problem, you know the solution, and you keep maintaining the problem because you perceive this problem as not being your fault, but somehow the fault of external factors."
In all seriousness, I don't see how you get this from the my comment, esp. in light of the second paragraph. My basic argument is just that surfing the web is rational for an intellectually curious person in the context of compulsory schooling, but that it's a difficult habit to shake once the context changes and it's no longer rational. I think you're reading too much into this.
> because everyone is free to do whatever they want.
Citation needed.
> It's rare to find the man who realizes that everything he fails at is ultimately his own fault
Incompatible with the other claim.
If other people are free to do whatever they want, they are free not to cooperate with you. If you fail to get Megan Fox to want to engage in mating behavior with you, it may well be due to circumstances beyond your control, like not being her "type".
We aren't free. We have a lot of built-in unconscious drives that push and pull us in one direction or another. Our decision-making process is wired up through genetic happenstance and upbringing. Our parents, schools, cultures, and religions programmed us to a large degree and then turned us out into the world.
If I cannot lay Megan Fox, it's because she decided not to. Excercising my freedom does not give me the right to take away someone elses freedom. If however, Miss Fox says no to me, and I take that to mean that I will fail with all chicks from then on, then that is my own bloody fault, and its something I can change easily by trying for other chicks.
So when someone blames his reading of reddit on his high school, I say that's silly, and its something he is absolutely in control of, and can change without affecting anybody elses freedom.
"Excercising my freedom does not give me the right to take away someone elses freedom."
Nonetheless, in this hypothetical situation, you failed in your quest to lay Megan. Therefore, by your own words, it is your own fault.
This myth, that it is your own fault if you fail to achieve your own goals, forms the foundation for conservative viewpoint in this nation. I'm not here to preach the gospel of the Left (they have their own mistaken views too), but you have to concede, as heart-breaking as it is, that the Right isn't always either.
Recognizing a situation for what it actually is necessitates that we take human behavior as an animal into consideration when observing our own behavior. Taken in the original context of the statement, the author's claim that our failures are "our" fault is an indictment, not merely an observation.
"Failure" is never just a black-and-white situation. We live in a complex, chaotic world. It's time it's addressed as such.
"School did so much to suck the joy out of reading that reading was simply out of the question for a good five year chunk of my life."
This is quite a curious thing to say, and I'm taking it quite literally: assuming this is true, how is it that you know so much?
Have you "made up" for your lost time after high school? Or were you actually learning, but latently? If the former, that's pretty amazing efficiency. If the latter, what part of school do you think it was that caused this?
Donald Knuth has a dedicated work computer, too - but apparently completely without network capabilities:
I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop—it has
no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory
drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for
network surfing and graphics;
For personal reasons, I do not browse the web from my computer. (I also have not net connection much of the time.) To look at page I send mail to a demon which runs wget and mails the page back to me. It is very efficient use of my time, but it is slow in real time. [1]
Has anyone here pointed out the irony of the guy who wrote Hacker News writing an article about distractions? I can't tell because I'm too busy flipping between tabs of stuff I clicked on here.
"mainly people who want YC to endorse their start-up"
You're wrong on this count. Many folks here have already had YC "endorse" their startup, and so stand to gain nothing by being the hottest nerd on Hacker News.
It would have been easy to turn off if I had to (I didn't), but it worked great when I'd idly click a bookmark to one of these sites to be given a blank screen.
An alternative is this: What I do (using my super secret self designed software) is that I monitor my usage of the internet, and for every hour firefox is open, I send $10 to my credit card account. So while I procrastinate, I lose cash money but repay my debts.
The reason its super secret is that it works with my bank account only with my banks online banking. It would only work there, so no need to try to make it available to others.
RescueTime is not a sticky app. You can install it and forget about it completly. Sending money out of my account is something that I see everytime I open my bank account.
I'm just making myself aware that in spending time on these sites, I'm taking away from my on-hand cash and moving it to a location that it will be difficult to extract from. So I'm doubling the loss involved in procrastinating.
The loss is just a short term loss with a longer term profit, but being the animals we are, the short term profit overweighs the long term profit, so I tend to keep this in balance.
Also, if I procrastinate a bit, but them work very effectively, I will earn money to cover for what I lost earlier. So it balances out.
What worked for me was leeching WiFi from the neighbors. It was a really weak signal, so I had to stand with my laptop pressed against the window. Never been more productive!
I am getting really sick of people ragging on TV. "Visual crack"? Really? Have you been watching TV lately? Sure there is show that are just mindless fun but everyone needs a chance to relax these days. TV is more and more producing great works of art, try The Wire if you're doubtful. TV writing is getting better all the time. I'm of the belief that narrative is important which is why so many people gravitate towards it whether in the form of TV, books, movies, comic books or even video games. And with the internet it's become even less of a passive experience inspiring social networks, creativity and intellectual thought among other things. I watch TV because it's a part of doing what I love and I will never apologize for watching 4 hours a day or however much I watch a certain day. And if you tell me to give it up, I'll tell you that you should try giving up all the narrative forms listed above. Some people may be able to do it and be happy but not most people.
It's all about moderation. Doing too much of any one thing is usually a bad idea but if you do small things that you love, it should be positive for you.
"I am getting really sick of people ragging on TV."
I would suggest getting a bucket then.
"Have you been watching TV lately?"
Have you observed the people who regularly watch TV? As a general rule, people know far more about what diet plan their latest football jocks are on than they know about world geography. I particularly loved this demonstration of this simple fact: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qUYm50jQscw
That's fine if you're PG and you write all the software yourself, but what if you're using a web framework or other open-source tools and need the web to access documentation or ask questions?
This is what I meant when I said the long-term solution might be software that controlled how you used the Internet, rather than simply turning off wifi.
> This is what I meant when I said the long-term solution might be software
And I thought that was just a not-so-subtle plug for YC-funded companies ;)
PS - I guess these things aren't intentionally PR-ish. If anyone spends time talking to startup founders who are solving problems, it's only natural to start incorporating these problems into your world-view...
It wasn't because we funded Rescuetime that I wrote about this problem, but because I already thought this problem was so important that we funded Rescuetime.
I've found personally I don't need to block the whole internet - just the top few procrastination websites - facebook, reddit, slashdot, bbc news etc. that I'd otherwise be tempted to read.
There's a Firefox extension called LeechBlock ( http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock.html ) that will do that for you, and allow fine control over how long or when the sites are blocked as well as the option to stop you simply disabling it during these time periods.
But you can still use the web for research.
(Hope it didn't sound too much like an advert, but it's helped me).
Excellent advice. I solved 80% part of the problem two days ago by simply blocking news.yc at the hosts file level on my main machine. My laptop is now my news.yc machine. It is hilarious to have PG publish the same solution two days later. :)
I tried the noprocrast setting on this site. Reading between the lines of his essay, I surmise that PG, like me, has evolved around noprocrast. My lizard brain has figured out how to click the override button before my conscious mind can notice.
Most of the rest of the stuff I read is a few dozen blogs. They update through RSS, and there are few enough of them (and I skim quickly enough) that they aren't a big time sink. It's news.yc -- which tends to embroil me in writing -- that's the sink.
Of course, there are worse ways to waste time than news.yc. Sometimes you need to tell yourself that.
How about downloading the documentation to your work computer and using that local copy? If the docs fail, you can use the other computer to ask questions.
And I found that with google and irc I became lazy. Instead of just looking at the code of the framework to understand it when I have a problem (which is good for improving myself as a programmer), I just do a quick search on google or irc hoping that someone gives me an answer...
Or even just installing Google Desktop and searching that when you are offline since it seems to index most HTML files you look at or are on your machine
After reading your comment and others', I realized that iptables might be able to help out here. I wrote up an Ask HN ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192953 ) which shows my current setup for throttling internet usage. Granted, storing pages in the browser cache is one great way to access documentation, but throttling might allow one to add pages to the cache while keeping procrastination at bay.
This is a bit tangential:
Every start-up that YC funds is potentially worth an essay. Isn't that why they are funded? They solve a problem that nags many. So I am not surprised to see Rescue Time linked in there (The title itself is a sure bet that it would).
However, given the wide reach of pg's articles (beyond news.YC), should the link merit a disclosure? There's a fuzzy notion of when that needs to be done and I am intrigued by what these notions are. People would be baying for Michael Arrington's blood if he was found responsible for such an omission, but I am guessing it is a non-issue here. So what's the difference? A higher implicit trust-ranking for pg? An assumption that everyone already knows about the linkages between YC and RescueTime? Or the fact that these essays aren't actively promoted by pg. That could be a factor even if the probability of his latest essay being posted within hours, here or elsewhere, is now close to one.
I think it's because nobody imagines pg would be lame enough to fund a bad product, and then promote it with his name. That would turn off lots of good potential YC applicants.
That it is a good product and appeals to many goes without saying no matter who the investor is. Presumably, every investor is behind a product because he/she sees some merit.
Yeah, hence the part about Paul Graham. Some people have audiences but not credibility. Paul Graham seems to have gotten his audience because of his credibility . It wouldn't be evil to do what you're worried about. It would just be dumb.
You are right on spot. PG really should update with full disclosure. I didn't click on the link, and it crossed my mind that it could be that Dilbertesque piece of software, but PG's credibility with me made me discredit the thought. This is an obviously blatant conflict of interest... isn't it supposed to be just an "essay"?
PG and others, instead of using 2 computers, you might want to try what works for me.
I used RescueTime for a few months before realizing I was asking the wrong question i.e. (Where & how long do I spend my online time?).
The correct question, for me, was to spend as much time online as I wanted as long as I have completed the things I wanted. Once you start browsing, while you are supposed to be working, you go into this downward spiral, and before you know it, it's the end of the day, and you have not done much.
So, a better solution for me, is to enable this gem of a software called Freedom (http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/freedom/) that disables all wireless & ethernet networking on my computer for up to three hours at a time, and I can go about doing my work for those hours. At the end of it browse a bit, and enable Freedom again.
"The correct question, for me, was to spend as much time online as I wanted as long as I have completed the things I wanted."
I've tried this, and it's generally a better approach, but then I run into a new question: what do I want to complete today? There's always more work that I could be doing, and it's sometimes hard to judge what's a fair day's worth of work.
For example, I finished one feature yesterday, compared to a dozen commits on Wednesday (and an average of about 2-3 features/day). But it was a feature that's been bugging me for a couple weeks so far, while Wednesday's work was a couple misc features, some added unit tests, updating to a new version of JQuery UI, and a lot of refactoring. When I was working on yesterday's feature, it was very much a "Shit, I haven't done anything today" - but that was because it was a hard feature to implement that required a lot of thought into how it integrated with the rest of the system. While on Wednesday, if I'd stopped after 2 svn commits, I would've done a grand total of 8 lines of work.
Also, I've found that my attitude towards more work changes significantly after finishing a new feature. Before check-in, I was like "Damnit, I can't wait for this to be over, I wonder what's on news.YC", while afterwards, I was like "Hmm, I wonder what else I can add." (I didn't add anything because it was 11:30 PM, but I probably could've worked in a few small bugfixes.)
In high school I started doing something that has worked really well for me and helped me to create good habits for college and work in general.
What I would do is keep a notebook by the side of my bed. Every night I would think of ~5 things, 'goals' maybe, that I wanted to do for the next day. Maybe they're school related, work related, or related to something else, social perhaps, whatever. If there was something bugging me that I had been putting it off, I would plan out a timeline or schedule, and come up with a reasonable 'goal' for what I thought I could - should - accomplish the next day.
Then, the next night, I would review my day and 'check off' what I had done, maybe write down comments to myself or revise my plan if I needed. But I would either feel happy and pleased with myself if I had done what I thought I needed to do, or I would feel disappointed and frustrated with myself if I hadn't.
Of course, everyone is different, but this worked for me. I don't like the idea of setting up firefox tools, different computers, whatever, to try to trick myself or punish myself or block myself from the Internet or some other 'time sink'. It seems too easy to simply flip a switch, turn that all off, and slip back into a bad habit.
Instead of even thinking about wasting time online, in front of the TV, whatever it is you waste time on - stop yourself and save it for later. Just do it. As it happens, for me anyway, if I can do this, then by the end of the day I don't really even care too much for those time wasting activities - they really aren't all that entertaining. (-:
Oh come on people... This one was rougher than the rest. Americans watch 4 hours of TV per day? Source? (Ok, there's Google, but that's not the good-old footnoted style.) Next, a bunch of fairly obvious things (TV is a time sink, so are other forms of distractions, and distractions prevent you from doing work!), then a submarine (plug for a personal investment).
The "solution" of separating out a work machine isn't particularly insightful either. I've done this before and I bet many others have also, and its efficacy depends highly on the person. (interestingly, I would guess that those who are very good at focusing wouldn't have to employ as many tactics to prevent their distraction).
Indeed, this wasn't the peer-reviewed kind of essay that normally gets linked here, but probably an inspirational thought-stream writing. Pardon my lack of tact, but given the ever-warm feedback to all pg essays alike, this one was, frankly, comparatively bland.
Evidentally, 8 hours per day per household. I suspect nielsen is using their meters or whatever, which clock up time even when no one is watching. Some households just let it run nonstop.
The internet doesn't bother me so much, though I've noticed my ability to read books has shriveled up alarmingly. The 'net is better than reversi and minesweeper and computer golf, which is exactly what people did before AOL came into their lives. I remember playing Sid Meier's Civilization literally 16 hours a day for several months after it came out. Same thing.
As for drinking alone, I suspect it's better on the whole. It reduces the likelihood of violent crimes and car wrecks, anyway.
I have a relative who drank alone. He drank himself to death when his kids were in their teens. Apparently nobody knew he was an alcoholic until he collapsed and died of liver failure.
"...then a submarine (plug for a personal investment)."
What? The way I read it wasn't a plug at all. To my knowledge, I don't think Paul has ever used RescueTime other than to poke around with it. Which is fine-- it's not for everyone. The way I read it was, "yeah there's software-- but my solution was a life-hack".
I appreciate the link (mostly for SEO reasons!), but I'm pretty sure that Paul could write an entire essay about RescueTime (heartily endorsing it) and it wouldn't have huge impact on our traffic (we've already been in front of many of the eyeballs that hit his essays).
I'm just really upset today and I had to troll... no, I'm fine, and I wrote that post sincerely. You made a valid point, and perhaps I was reading too deep, but you have to agree that pg being an investor of RT implies partiality and marks an easy target. Hit or miss is a different matter, but I used it as an example of something that didn't do much for the quality of the essay. But don't get me wrong, I have nothing against RT.
The technique that has helped me the most is simply acknowledging that I am not able to be computer-work productive every waking hour.
So when I notice my focus starting to drift, I consciously make a decision: Am I going to refocus and continue working? or Am I going to do something else?
I dont feel guilty about doing something else, as long as that something else is also productive, ie work in another domain.
As I have practiced this approach, I am able to identify the loss of focus more quickly and because I do not feel guilty about shifting my productivity to another domain, my overall productivity has gone up.
I'm not sure I liked this essay. Usually, when you read PG's essay you immediately realize that insane amount of effort and thought is involved. While reading this essay, it ended where it should have begun from.
I like the separate computer concept. Is there a way to make that more practical for people who are developing websites on their primary computer? I'd like to be able to get at the websites I own and the core documentation at least. I feel like you could co-opt some of these child-safe browsing tools to only let you on to the sites that were necessary for work. Maybe this could be the next step for rescuetime--only let me on to sites that I said were productive.
I think restricting to Google and Wikipedia (or sites directly accessed through Google or Wikipedia) would cover 99% of my productive use of the internet.
You could have the work computer get a filtered internet connection through the "internet computer" similar to the way some companies filter the internet.
One wonders how hard it would be to hack up a tool that enforced a time limit on sites that were flagged (by you, in Rescuetime) as time-wasters. You know, after 15 minutes on slashdot.org the hosts file gets rewritten to automatically rickroll all requests to slashdot.
I'm not sure if RescueTime has a public API, but I think it already has the triggers and warnings and feeds that you would need to drive this.
What about having the other computer that's connected to the internet be physically uncomfortable to use for an extended period of time? Maybe force yourself to stand to use that computer?
There is a book called "be the pack leader" of Cesar Vidal. It talks about the strange things dogs do because of their alien environment. We are not designed for working 8 hours a day only.
when I'm working that way I need distractions, because I need to talk with people, I need to exercise, I need to go out.
When I'm on vacations I need to work. It's an equilibrium.
It's funny. I never really liked games, especially computer games, playstation games, etc... however, I like to play soccer, go surfing or maybe play chess.
But most of all, I like to listen and play music. I always found that relaxing. After one hour listening to music, I can focus on whatever I have to do.
About Internet distractions, it really annoys me. Flash games, blinking banners, this kind of thing. I like websites as simple as it can be. That's why I sometimes browse the web through Lynx (a text-mode web browser).
As for TV, I don't watch it since I was 14. I didn't have to force myself not to watch it. I released that people just keep saying the same old jokes and stupid comments over and over again. It's much better to see a movie or read a book.
Marcus V. Alvares - From Brazil.
I had an idea for "manual overclocking" once. It would be a crank sticking out of the front of a PC that you could turn to overclock your processor when you really needed it. Mostly it was a therapy for waiting on slow processes. No, I didn't make one, although now I hop on News.YC or some similar site when I have to wait for too long, so there may still be something there.
You could adapt that idea here, with the Gilligan's Island concept of "powering" certain tasks. It would be interesting to configure your computer to require you to regularly move your mouse (or finger on your trackpad) to keep the browser window from fading away or to "power" a check of your email. But could you make it annoying enough?
My nephew started college last year. When he was at home his parents monitored his Internet time. Now, armed with a new Apple acquired as a present and unlimited Internet access supposedly given because students have to research his head is filled with distractions. Every attempt at making him do some real work is refuted with something like - "but, this is archaic stuff - just pick it off the net from here" or "hey, give me a few min and I can grab it off the net" or worse still "someone stole my idea!". Absolutely no work and lots and lots of fluff in his poor head.
oh man, I stood up at 6 early this morning (CET), turned on my pc to do a really really urgent math assignment, and my python scripts, which I tuned down today to report me only the most urgent things (in the category or a new 11th september or better: of a new 3rd world war) start howling, produce a window before my eyes, obscure the view to the math assignment, report me in blood red capitals: "NEW ARTICLE BY PAUL GRAHAM! NEW ARTICLE BY PAUL GRAHAM! YESS YESS YESS!!!!" (all the other python bots, except that one peridically checking PG's hp stayed calm)
I decided this reigns among the 3 incidents with enough balls to distract me today. I don't know the exact frequency of PG's essay-releases, but this can't be a coincidence. It was preprogrammed by a higher being, (something like the most general meta-meta-macro) it was a test of willpower whether I really really wanna finish my math studies or not, and I failed. I read this essay tho i had 0 time on my hands. This math assignment might have posed the turning point in my life, and I neglected it in order to read Pauls writing where he explains I shouldn't read things online. Because its so distracting! (Thats interesting: A distracting essay about how to not get distracted.) Fortunately it was short. THANK GOD! So I might survive this somehow.
SUMMARY of THOUGHT: PG's has created with his essays one of the deadliest addictions online, worse than TV, games, etc taken together. I hope he feels a bit guilty about it (and about my math assignments too)
What if your work _is_ the internet? What if I need to be connected in order to test web applications, update my sites, and commit to subversion and git file repositories?
..oho-ho... Paul Graham (a creator of some scheme macro kludgy prototype that finally does what other people's micro-lisps and micro-schemes have done for _years_ if not decades) and his hot-air brigade declared the Internet Ultimate Evil.
The Internet is <b>an amplifier of thinking</b>. If in the past ages one would be limited by his access to books, had to physically travel to get access or wait for weeks, what is left to a human brain now is analyzing, discerning, hypothesizing, searching for evidence to confirm - because the Internet is an almost immediate reference with access to almost everything.
Note how different it is from the rammin into a passive victim faster and faster-montaged propaganda, to block any vestige of thought from this victim's head - what is television, of course.
With the Internet I have to get to the materials ACTIVELY. Although I switch off flash and javascript during normal work and browsing, of course.
A "computer specialist" that pushes us luddite idea of the Internet as the ultimate drug and evil! It's like a luddite who happens to be a technologist, only a bit more unnatural.
A man with access to the best instrument in aid of thinking incapable to see what he touches.
Only in Paul Graham's blog, only in Paul Graham's..
It just happened to me. Ran into a problem while programming and fired up HN and started reading PG's article. Now how do I get out of this time sink again?
About 4 years ago I finally (it seems) stopped smoking, and my wife (then girlfriend) as well. Before that I was a smoker for about 12 years or so. In the last 6-7 years before realy quitting I was more or less constantly in the process of quitting. When successful for one years or one and a half, then I would lapse back into the bad habit. And always for almost honorable reasons. Paul's description is quite correct here. Who wanted to blame you for a single cigarette on your graduation party, and the like.
It became a bit disheartening, because once you had proven that you would relapse after apparently successfully stopping for so long, you don't believe into yourself any longer. If 18 months was not safe, would it be fair to feel safe after 24 months the next time? Or after 30 months? And in general it was really this continuous argument with yourself all the time. Just one tonight? -- But then I found a trick that worked. My girlfriend (who smoked as well) and me would set up a monetary fine. That simple. And effective. We agreed that whoever smokes a cigarette had to pay 500 euros (which was a lot for us then), no offsetting against each other!
Reflecting on this, it is curious that one should be more successful with a bit of cash, when years of your life and your health are at stake. And I was perfectly aware of the health risk back then, of course. I assume that one involuntarily calculates the net present value of your health in the future. I think your really have to beat the economics of quitting, otherwise you out-cheat yourself without end. Take an amount that hurts you. I am a idealistic person, and working with cheap money tricks was not much after my taste. We were making us the equivalent of a donkey tricked around by a carrot. But it work for us and was even quite painless. So I recommend this to other smokers.
As a computer consultant I find time and time again that many people are wasting increasingly a lot of their spare time and even working hours browsing the Internet. Many times they start with a good reason, but after a little while they wander and end going to sites they never intended to go to in the first place.
For teens it is increasingly more difficult to stay away from networking sites like myspace.com, there they share more personal information than they ought to and do whatever it takes to have as many 'friends' as possible.
One problem with an ever increasing reliance on computers is that we are more and more getting away from physical actual contact with other human beings.
Kids are potentially vulnerable to predators and all kind of garbage found on the Internet like porno, violence, drugs, and much more.
I couldn't resist adding my pitch of salt to your essay, it is like much of what you write straight forward and to the point.
Would be nice if you were to write a new essay on how kids and teens could be better protected, and why they have to. A problem I frequently see is that there are many homes where the kids and teens are computer savvy, but the parents know next to nothing about computers. Just picture a teen or little kid as the computer admin with unrestricted access to the system and the Internet.
Some possible solutions, apart from trowing the computer out the window, should include besides parents training, better operating systems, that make from simple to easy to secure and filter Internet access, opendns to block unwanted content, and even this could be controversial more Government oversight, to really get rid of plagues like spy ware, virus proliferation, phishing, and many other Internet ills.
I think procrastination and distractions are very much related. When I procrastinate I usually find ways to distract myself with unproductive activities. Unfortunately, unplugging myself from the web is not practical for me.
One of the best techniques I've found to reduce procrastination and thus distractions is making lists. Lists work for me because I feel a sense of accomplishment every time I finish something on the list(even if it's the smallest thing.) I've found lists really helpful for decomposing complex tasks too.
Another technique I've been using more of lately is to prioritize a very small task to do the next time I sit down to work. Smaller tasks are less daunting and I tend to do them quickly to get them out of the way. This prevents me from starting my day with any distracting activity (ex. checking email, reading news etc.)
Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you (or anyone here) could imagine putting this to work on a creative company. Lets say, put separate computers in the same room just to browse or email checking, and leave the main computers for work.
I think that in creative environments where the deadlines are very short - ie. ad agencies, design, production.. etc - having a computer connected full time is better for efficiency and since the deadlines are so short people tend to complete their task by means of inherent preassure of the work.
The problem arises and gets more complicated in the cases of programmers, book writers, scriptwriters, composers....professionals who have time to "spare" in procrastinations such as the ones we find on the internet.
I will try to implement Paul´s technique and see if I can star my script.
Nostrademon's comment about making work more fun than the distraction seems right.
<... only thing that seems to work for me is to make whatever I'm working on significantly more fun than what I should be doing>
My latest STRATEGY is to move my work (writing and elearning game design) into the cloud since that's where I live anyway. I have 5+ private blogs (all connected of course, through WordPress dashboard) that I use to manage content (categories are king, tags are pointless since I don't want publicity) and as a place to do my real work (planning, designing, collating, editing, researching) and keep a record of my progress... and SO FAR I'm effortlessly spending most of my hours in this artificial work-world I've created and much much less time on the wild untamed Net.
We all get distracted and specially when we are not really interested or enthusiastic about what we should be doing.
I read in Flow (the book), procrastination happens when either the task is too challenging (for one's skill) or too mundane.
I have noticed, when I am really interested into work, I never get distracted and have total control over things (IMs, Twitter, etc).
I have recently started doing some side projects (small ones), so whenever I am kindda loosing focus on main task, I switch to other tasks.. So eventually, I am getting distracted but the outcome is positive, learning and being in flow state.
As someone said, addiction can replaced by something else, for smoking can be replaced by chewing gums or chocolates, but if you stop it doing all of sudden, it's not gonna work out..
An excellent post. I'm finding this is increasingly a problem too. I often find my greatest productivity in coding comes when there is a power outage. Not only am I forced to not browse the Internet, I'm just plain forced to NOT use a computer at ALL. Pencil and paper only.
If you need to have a network in place, while still preventing the urge to browse, you might want to try using some alternative networking infrastructure. Consider using AX.25 to transfer files, for example. Unless you configure TCP/IP to tunnel through AX.25, you won't be able to browse or use the Internet. But, you still have connectivity to your work-related file servers, since they'll (presumably also) have connectivity via AX.25 too.
Rather than focus on specific tricks, I've found the best thing to keep me focused is to set up lots of aggressive short term goals _and_ have a fixed time when I will stop working for the day. Just having daily goals isn't enough - it's too easy to procrastinate and then work long hours to make up for it.
I also try to schedule a two hour chunk each day (preferably near the beginning) with minimal interruptions and just leave emacs and shells open. Regardless of how many meetings or other distractions come up the rest of the day, I can guarantee some amount of forward progress on the technical front. It's actually pretty amazing how much can get done in two hours if you're very focused.
First off, how ironic is it to stumble on this post when in the act of procrastinating?
It's also true that most of our economy revolves around "time wasting" actives, especially with the Internet (e.g. google, facebook, youtube, amazon, ebay). But then look at most major inventions in the last 2000+ years, and almost all can be qualified as being used as distractions. (e.g. alcohol, religion, music, books, painting, cars, airplanes, telephone, movies, TV, VCR's, Tivos, phonograph, vinyl, CD's, sports). I wouldn't want to be in a world without such a variety of distractions.
The happiest people will be those that overlap their preferred distractions with their vocation.
Wondering if anyone has tried meditation as a means to solve this problem. I am no expert in this, i do it only occasionally. But i have noticed that i seem to have better control over me on those days when i meditate.
I take my laptop down to a coffeeshop, where i can't access the intenet. The laptop also came without any games installed -- not even solitaire -- and I've kept it that way. These two conditions work well.
I change my hosts file for this purpose. It works when I actually feel bad when I'm on a site but go to it anyways. It takes some effort to change the hosts file, and I tell myself that I shouldn't do it.
I used a poor person's variant on the 'internet computer' solution. I didn't have internet at home at all. If I wanted to get on the internet, I had to wander on down to a cafe and use their wireless. This took a while. In particular, it shut down at 12. One could continue to work by plugging in outside and kneeling in the darkness. If you did this, you were certain to have better things to do than procrastinate. I did get an awful lot done.
Sadly, it was only temporary. It was cold out there, I caught the flu, and decided I might like internet at home after all.
I had something similar once. I had to drive to the library. They closed at 9. I unfortunately didn't get a lot done. I get a lot more done when I have the internet anytime.
Can't you just print "What's the best thing you could be working on, and why aren't you?" on a big piece of paper and hang that somewhere near the time sinks? Shame yourself into doing something more interesting than watching TV or surfing the web.
Having something break and then not replace it, is good as well. My TV broke early last month and I simply haven't bought a new one yet. I had to laugh at myself a few times when I stumbled over to the TV (dinner, after dinner, after riding my bike, Sunday afternoon etc.)
I use the net to spin up the brain before working, and I use it during the day to keep the brain spinning. My work can be boring at times, and checking the net - news feeds, email, forums - keeps me up.
If I'm disconnected, then I'm still filling that spin up time reading something that is not related to my work. I'm rated well at work, and am known as being very productive and reliable. I don't tell them how I work, I just do it. They seem happy, based on what they tell me and what they put in my bank account.
I usually keep separate Firefox windows open: one for distractions (with the basic four tabs: google RSS reader, gmail, facebook, and news.yc), and 'n' other windows for work.
You may not need to be as explicit as a different computer on the other side of the room. I wonder if it would be enough just to theme your firefox windows. You could have the circuitboard theme for work firefox windows, and the carebears theme for play windows. The theme could change depending on what tabs are open in the window.
Just an hour online? To read articles, and all the comments, and reply to them? Not to mention emails? PG must be a super fast reader and writer, or his hours are longer than mine.
Something that I have noticed really distracts me is computer eye candy. I am sort of glad that Linux laptops just aren't as visually WOW as OS X and Windows, especially OS X. I find that when I boot into Linux I get a lot more work done. The environment is just less distracting to me. For some reason a Linux desktop clicks me into work mode much more readily. I guess it could be conditioning but I really thing it is in large part that the screen isn't quite so pretty.
Very Good Points, For me though Distraction is a difficult thing to get rid of - I have found setting out my day into blocks of 30 min periods are useful, having a timer go off after those 30 min keeps your mind in check. However, having the time to do this each day is not easy and not to mention the fact that life throws curve balls at you all the time which can lead to your allocations being a bit out of whack.
The software solution is possible - you could use a program called Inet Protect (http://www.blumentals.net/inetprot/) to only allow internet access during certain hours of the day. The other solution is guilt-based, using SphericalTech's time tracking software to produce reports of where you spend your time. However, I doubt it will help in the long term.
It seems that the bottom-line regarding procrastination goes something like this. You can use any of many available tools to try and keep you from being distracted. But if you 'do not want' to do what you need to do, then its very difficult. I read a statement a while back which has stuck with me to this day....i cannot remember the source.
"Some people are unfortunately motivated by stress, rather than being motivated by discipline"
I am supposed to be working on my thesis now but any thing seems to be more interesting than it after having worked on it for almost the entire day. I think an approach to beat procrastination is to "accept" it. If I know I spend generally an hour surfing the web for every two hours of work, then I will start working on a project sooner if I can. I guess this can be called a "know thyself" approach.
With quite a number of months past, are you still following this routine - have you made adjustments/improvements? I'm very interested to know since I have this problem as well -in my case it's with Wikipedia.
I can spend whole days reading on the site about computers, science & politics, and although I learn alot and it does benefit in whatever work I do, it's definitely not financially viable in the long run.
BTW, I'm going to try your suggestion of having another PC - or maybe it's an excuse to buy a new PC :-)... just wanting to know whether you changed anything since writing the article.
This is a reason why having a boss at work helps. If you know your web browsing may be examined you save (nearly) all the distracting reading for home and you get something like your 7 hours of work done but you can still search the web for unit test guidance or whatever.
I've never had a television and reddit is blocked in my home squid proxy (which I can bypass) as a reminder not to be there too much.
Since I work on one laptop and can't turn wifi off (IM w/ distributed workmates), PG's trick doesn't apply to me.
However I find simply separating work/fun applications has helped me work more efficiently and reduce distractions.
For examples: I switched to NetNewsWire from Google Reader. And I use Safari only for work and Firefox for general browsing. Trick is to keep the non-work applications turned off while working.
A decade ago or so when the web wasn't quite as distracting games were my biggest distraction. On my main machine I dual booted Windows and Linux. Linux was for work and Windows was for games (Quake/Starcraft mostly).
It was extremely helpful that I could very visibly go from one mode to the other. My mind would totally shift into a different gear as I made the decision to choose Linux or Windows at the lilo prompt.
Check out LeechBlock Firefox plugin which allows to block sites that you know leech your time then lock the block down for a period of time (i.e. 1 week, 24 hours) so you can't get around it. Genius.
Great Essay with lots of useful tips and tricks. I like the 2 computers idea esp. since I also thoght of it, except I never implemented this idea.
Just one question: 4 hrs is a quarter of the average American's day? huh? Do Americans have shorter days than the rest of the world?
Last I checked 4 hrs was a sixth of a day - sixth of a life if done everyday
Hein
Isn't writing - and reading - articles like this just part of the process of procastination and distraction?
Actually, watching TV, reading email, writing articles etc. indicates you are engaged with your surroundings, not trying to isolate yourself from it. You're trying to gather information you need to know, or contact and influence others.
I'm a lucky guy. I've chosen for myself the job of e-entrepreneur, and so when I'm navigating I'm actually working! Be it e-mails, my feedreader, digg, paulgraham.com or whatever else, I'm actually always trying to improve my business and offer my customers a better service!
Or am I fooling myself? Time will tell.
Ironic, but I came to HN (today) to find the discussion on Clay Shirky's "Where do people find the time?" [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=174410]. And then I saw PG's article.
Must be a sign. I need to stop finding ways to procrastinate and get back to work.
I'm going to try this - I've got a television upstairs that's basically just a computer with a giant 42" monitor (It isn't connected to any kind of television broadcast, because I download the shows I watch).
I'm going to try and use this as my Internet machine since it's primary purpose has always been entertainment.
Most people can only afford one computer, let alone two of them.
But I do agree with what is being said here. The only time I watch television these days is when a good game is on ESPN. Even then, I watch while sitting at the computer, working on my blog (PaulsHealthBlog.com) or writing email.
I like the idea of two different computers. Knowing the kinds of people who read PG essays and frequent HN, the "work" computer would invariably be some flavor of Unix. Perhaps you could get rid of X and just run in console mode. This would mean even fewer distractions.
My solution in University: The "Dana" by Alphasmart. It's a computer which is just a keyboard with a small screen showing three lines; once you are finished, plug it into a regular computer and press "send."
Thanks for this short article, I suffer the same problem and your analysis seems pretty good. I'm going to try out the two computer solution now too, because I've had enough of these Email and Web mornings myself.
I wonder how I could translate this to the shopping problem. I keep buying sweets in weak moments. Perhaps using two different purses could do the trick, one for forbidden stuff and the other for everything else?
I always get bitten when I need to look up some c++ STL on cplusplus reference. I end up checking mails, checking news, checking share prices etc. I haven't broken the habbit....yet.
Please tell me if there is any problem with this, I will remove the translation.
To be frank, your words inspired me a lot, though I am neither a programmer nor a hacker, the principles and the way you analyse how to start a startup is applicable to other industries than programming, too, Thank you, dude.
Paul, I definitely feel this pain and realize I waste a good chunk of time. With all my programs moving into the cloud however, it's impossible to make this separation.
A very clever idea though, but i wouldn't have come across it if i had been "working" on my "disconnected-from-the-web-work-computer". So there are trade-offs.
Ironically for me, reading your essays is often how I avoid doing real work. I find myself avoiding work by reading an essay on how not to avoid work. Ha!
I prefer Paul's wider take on things, it's what makes his writing so unique, it encompasses almost anything and everything.
I've thought many times about quitting programming altogether because it's in some ways such a narrow and suffocating field, which can relate to, yet fails to relate to, so many real world issues. Paul grasps, combines and presents these issues admirably.
My counterwish, therefore, is to say don't change your writing one bit!
What also works is Freedom (mac only): http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/freedom/
It disables ethernet for a specific period of time. You can only turn it off by rebooting. It's drastic (but I need drastic).
Another option, for those using an apple Airport Base Station, is to activate the Timed Access control for your computer's MAC address. I, for instance, cut off my net access between 9am and 5pm on the weekend.
Not the same thing. The idea is to physically move your body far enough away from one or the other. You can only do one at a time. Your reptilian brain must sense that something is wrong (or right). Flicking a switch while still sitting on your butt isn't enough.
Paul - moving your i-net access to a separate PC is only avoiding the real issue - yourself and what you're doing with yourself (e.g. your life).
If you get your job done, even with all the distractions included as part of it, then your problem isn't either of 1) getting your job done and on time or 2) distractions of various types.
Your "problem" (allow me to be presumptive to illustrate a point) is you aren't "feeling it" anymore for your job as a techie. You learned the God language - Lisp - you know you can get shit done with it, and above all - you DO get shit done with it. Distracted or not.
What you want is to set yourself up for a bigger game - and when I say a "bigger" game, I mean find something to do where you "know" you are going to fail or something that makes you feel uncomfortable enough to think you might fail at it. Reason I quoted "know" is because you don't know you're going to fail until you do something, however, you have (luxury of) the pretense of "knowing" because the thought of doing something other than what you superbly know how to do and have been doing for a long time, gives you the willies and makes you feel "uncomfortable".
When you begin to feel uncomfortable about doing something you haven't done before, you will cease to be distracted, because you will be preoccupied with overcoming the fear of failing at your new endeavor (and being in that state will offer you excitement without distractions).
Now - does that new game have to be creating yet another Lisp dialect (e.g. Arc, or whatever you called it..?)? No. I know you can write the next Lisp, or whatever...
Try this on - set up a program in your neighborhood where /every/ weekend you get a /firm/ commitment from 5 or 10 people to pick up garbage or litter from the common areas...
Or try to get a homeless guy to 1) shave, 2) clean up, 3) buy some new clothes (or you buy him some) and see that getting a job as a a bagman for 8 hours a day at Wal-Mart or Target pays better than begging on a street corner...
Or use your imagination ... and find something to do that will inspire you and those you are involved with.
I promise you will not be distracted whatsoever when you put your efforts toward doing something like this. You don't have to believe me about this. Try it on. See how it fits. Then come back and tell me you are still feeling 'distracted'.
Without the different environment, the effect is even shorter-lived. I had a paper due once in college. Knowing that I wasn't about to do it, I handed my Ethernet cord to a friend and said "Don't let me have this back until tomorrow." And - as ridiculous as the article suggests it is - I sat at my desk doing absolutely nothing all night. Really. I was basically staring off into space the whole time.
The only thing that seems to work for me is to make whatever I'm working on significantly more fun than what I should be doing. So for example, I got a ton done on my startup between 3/15 and 4/10 because I said "Okay, I'll just put off my taxes until after my startup's in better shape." And then my taxes got done with no fuss because I was really burned out from all that coding, and filling out a few tax forms actually seemed more enjoyable than writing another line of code. This is another plus of living with parents: they give you chores, so you can say "Yeah, I'll run to the post office for you, just let me finish this feature."
BTW, I didn't quit watching TV by any conscious act of willpower; I quit because I got addicted to MMORPGs. And then I quit MMORPGs because I got addicted to Starcraft, and then I quit StarCraft because I got addicted to HP fanfiction, then I quit fandom because I got addicted to computer websites. A distraction never seems to go away until you find something to replace it with.