Yes I've done this a lot too. Emacs is the perfect environment for doing this too, but it really isn't too blame. I also have a problem wasting too much time on reddit and HN. If I put all this time I've been spending reading forum comments into instead reading really high quality content material (maybe books, wikipedia, or even good source code) I'd probably be a lot more skilled than I am. But, yeah the problem is me, and I agree looking to software (like discract-free apps) to solve the problem for me is counter-productive

Someone once said that the trick of being productive is to use emacs as "your operating system", or unproductive if you just end up playing with elisp all day.