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Re:Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Emai... by ashwinaj on Thursday February 04, 2016 @03:29PM (#11036939)
Having a Pomodoro [1] app on your desktop/laptop helps. It sounded lame to me initially (do work in 25 min chunks), but it seems to work for me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

Re:Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Emai... by cgriswald on Thursday February 04, 2016 @04:05PM (#11037214)
By way of disclaimer, I don't really have the problem OP describes; don't really even understand it.

But I'll second pomodoros for pushing productivity and focus without killing yourself.

I'll add that daily exercise improves clarity of mind (read: more focus and other benefits). And having a busy schedule limits my ability to spend time on social media or sites like Hacker News; so when I do spend time on them, I tend to be more efficient with it (i.e., focus on those things most important to me) and feel like I get more out of it.

I think that last bit may be part of the problem for OP: the reward becoming harder and hard to get, requiring more and more time. Going cold turkey and then slowly introducing Facebook et al., back in might help a lot.

Re:Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Emai... by unfocused828 on Friday February 05, 2016 @01:26AM (#11039910)
You might also find that a different cadence than 25 minutes works better for you. I personally use 90 minutes because I find that if I make it shorter than an hour, that the timer is just an annoying interruption.