Ask HN: How do you stop reading the internet when you need to work?

Re:Ask HN: How do you stop reading the internet when you nee... by bootload on Thursday November 06, 2008 @04:37AM (#355519)

"... How do you stop reading the internet when you need to work? ..."

Hard problem this one.

Some times you need to search the web for information. Other times you really need to turn access off to get work done. One suggestion would be to pre-search all you need to search for. But this is clumsy and sometimes unforeseen comes along. Then when it comes time to work, try working on a machine not connected to the Internet.

But this practice doesn't scale. Is anyone working on an idea that lets an algorythm to work this out for lots of individuals?

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Re:Ask HN: How do you stop reading the internet when you nee... by ggruschow on Thursday November 06, 2008 @05:40AM (#355553)

I start my time wasting on a few sites (e.g. this one), so I just blocked them from my work computer (hosts[1] file -> 127.0.0.1). If I really have to, I can go in and remove the mapping. It's enough of a hassle that I don't though. It's worked so well that I ended up blocking sites that get me upset also (intranet).. that kills my productivity in a different way.

Also, as much as I thought I benefit from the internet while doing a lot of my work, I now really question it. In the past few years, when stuck on a problem, I'd just google it. Now, I think that's probably counterproductive in the long-run. It gets you out of what you were doing, and you don't learn as much or as deeply as working on the problem yourself.

Lately, I've been trying to figure out how to best deal with IM. I do need to have it up so people that are too far away to get to me can ask questions, but I like talking to people more than I like my work right now. (I'm dealing with that also)

[1] /etc/hosts on unix, %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts on windows

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