This link has been bookmarked by 82 people . It was first bookmarked on 18 May 2008, by FruFru FourOne.
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10 Sep 17
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The strategy described at the end of this essay didn't work. It would work for a while, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet on my work computer.
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Procrastination feeds on distractions. Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else.
So one way to beat procrastination is to starve it of distractions. -
Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time.
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Addictive things have to be treated as if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to stop doing. If you leave a path to it, he'll find it.
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The key seems to be visibility. The biggest ingredient in most bad habits is denial. So you have to make it so that you can't merely slip into doing the thing you're trying to avoid. It has to set off alarms.
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05 Sep 14
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sentient
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adversaries
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15 Oct 12
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03 Sep 12
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27 Mar 12
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Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else.
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Distraction is not a static obstacle that you avoid like you might avoid a rock in the road. Distraction seeks you out.
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After years of carefully avoiding classic time sinks like TV, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I didn't realize that it evolves. Something that used to be safe, using the Internet, gradually became more and more dangerous. Some days I'd wake up, get a cup of tea and check the news, then check email, then check the news again, then answer a few emails, then suddenly notice it was almost lunchtime and I hadn't gotten any real work done. And this started to happen more and more often.
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When I was in the middle of a project, distractions weren't really a problem. It was when I'd finished one project and was deciding what to do next that they always bit me.
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Another reason it was hard to notice the danger of this new type of distraction was that social customs hadn't yet caught up with it. If I'd spent a whole morning sitting on a sofa watching TV, I'd have noticed very quickly. That's a known danger sign, like drinking alone. But using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like wor
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The key seems to be visibility. The biggest ingredient in most bad habits is denial. So you have to make it so that you can't merely slip into doing the thing you're trying to avoid. It has to set off alarms.
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28 Feb 12
Pablo StafforiniRecommended by Patri Friedman
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14 Dec 11
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22 Aug 11
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15 Sep 10
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Maybe in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them. But in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution that definitely works: to set up a separate computer for using the Internet
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03 Aug 10
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04 Jun 10
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06 Apr 10
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one way to beat procrastination is to starve it of distractions
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Chesterfield described dirt as matter out of place.
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as we learn to avoid one class of distractions, new ones constantly appear, like drug-resistant bacteria.
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you can't solve the problem of overeating by stopping eating.
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Addictive things have to be treated as if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to stop doing. If you leave a path to it, he'll find it.
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you have to make it so that you can't merely slip into doing the thing you're trying to avoid. It has to set off alarms.
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My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as I do it on that computer. And this turns out to be enough. When I have to sit on the other side of the room to check email or browse the web, I become much more aware of it.
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And my main computer is now freed for work. If you try this trick, you'll probably be struck by how different it feels when your computer is disconnected from the Internet. It was alarming to me how foreign it felt to sit in front of a computer that could only be used for work, because that showed how much time I must have been wasting.
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23 Dec 09
Jimmy BaikoviciusProcrastination feeds on distractions. Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else.
work management productivity psychology computers paulgraham advice
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14 Mar 09
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30 Dec 08
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03 Dec 08
garret"Eventually, though, it became clear that the Internet had become so much more distracting that I had to start treating it differently. Basically, I had to add a new application to my list of known time sinks: Firefox."
lifehacks productivity tips internet attention procrastination distraction essays time
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13 Oct 08
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06 Oct 08
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Addictive things have to be treated as if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to stop doing. If you leave a path to it, he'll find it.
The key seems to be visibility. The biggest ingredient in most bad habits is denial. So you have to make it so that you can't merely slip into doing the thing you're trying to avoid. It has to set off alarms.
Maybe in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them. But in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution that definitely works: to set up a separate computer for using the Internet.
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02 Sep 08
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18 Jul 08
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Television, for example, has after 50 years of refinement reached the point where it's like visual crack. I realized when I was 13 that TV was addictive, so I stopped watching it. But I read recently that the average American watches 4 hours of TV a day. A quarter of their life.
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After years of carefully avoiding classic time sinks like TV, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I didn't realize that it evolves. Something that used to be safe, using the Internet, gradually became more and more dangerous. Some days I'd wake up, get a cup of tea and check the news, then check email, then check the news again, then answer a few emails, then suddenly notice it was almost lunchtime and I hadn't gotten any real work done. And this started to happen more and more often.
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12 Jul 08
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24 Jun 08
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Chesterfield described dirt as matter out of place. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. And technology is continually being refined to produce more and more desirable things. Which means that as we learn to avoid one class of distractions, new ones constantly appear, like drug-resistant bacteria.
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I remember when computers were, for me at least, exclusively for work. I might occasionally dial up a server to get mail or ftp files, but most of the time I was offline. All I could do was write and program. Now I feel as if someone snuck a television onto my desk. Terribly addictive things are just a click away. Run into an obstacle in what you're working on? Hmm, I wonder what's new online. Better check.
After years of carefully avoiding classic time sinks like TV, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I didn't realize that it evolves. Something that used to be safe, using the Internet, gradually became more and more dangerous. Some days I'd wake up, get a cup of tea and check the news, then check email, then check the news again, then answer a few emails, then suddenly notice it was almost lunchtime and I hadn't gotten any real work done. And this started to happen more and more often. -
At first I tried rules. For example, I'd tell myself I was only going to use the Internet twice a day. But these schemes never worked for long. Eventually something would come up that required me to use it more than that. And then I'd gradually slip back into my old ways.
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16 Jun 08
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01 Jun 08
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31 May 08
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alarms
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24 May 08
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23 May 08
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22 May 08
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21 May 08
Adam Crowe"Your old bad habits now help you to work. You're used to sitting in front of that computer for hours at a time. But you can't browse the web or check email now. What are you going to do? You can't just sit there. So you start working." -- I'm in denial.
addiction procrastination productivity work ADHD attentiondeficithyperactivedisorder attention continuouspartialattention gtd psychology cyberpsychology
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20 May 08
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19 May 08
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Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else
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Which means that as we learn to avoid one class of distractions, new ones constantly appear, like drug-resistant bacteria
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A quarter of their life.
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Now I feel as if someone snuck a television onto my desk. Terribly addictive things are just a click away. Run into an obstacle in what you're working on? Hmm, I wonder what's new online. Better check
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Addictive things have to be treated as if they were sentient adversaries—as if there were a little man in your head always cooking up the most plausible arguments for doing whatever you're trying to stop doing. If you leave a path to it, he'll find it.
-
The key seems to be visibility. The biggest ingredient in most bad habits is denial. So you have to make it so that you can't merely slip into doing the thing you're trying to avoid. It has to set off alarms.
-
Maybe in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them. But in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution that definitely works: to set up a separate computer for using the Internet.
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I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web.
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Your old bad habits now help you to work. You're used to sitting in front of that computer for hours at a time. But you can't browse the web or check email now. What are you going to do? You can't just sit there. So you start working.
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Mohit JustProcrastination feeds on distractions. Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else...
advice article blog essays timemanagement procrastination distraction
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arcojediProcrastination feeds on distractions. Most people find it uncomfortable just to sit and do nothing; you avoid work by doing something else. So one way to beat procrastination is to starve it of distractions. But that's not as straightforward as it sounds
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18 May 08
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ken .TV as addictive sink, trapping our time, and now we have network connectivity at work - "I feel as if someone snuck a television onto my desk"
attention internet management procrastination quotes time tv
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