[kaolinite]

I've drastically cut my HN time in the past few months by following this one weird trick:

Add "news.ycombinator.com##td.subtext" following to your Adblock/uBlock custom filters.

You still get to read the articles and keep up with tech news, but you don't end up in comment threads (unless it's an Ask HN/etc, hence why I'm commenting now). Occasionally I load up HN in a different browser if I want to take a break and read some comments but my idle browsing has been drastically reduced.

There's lots of great content in the comments, but it's also a fantastic way to waste time.

[mattgibson]

> There's lots of great content in the comments, but it's also a fantastic way to waste time.

But I learn more from the comments than from the articles!

[hanniabu]

I agree with this. I find it not only interesting, but also informative to hear other people's take on articles, both for their opinion and added knowledge of something that may not be in the article. Sometimes the discussions veer a little bit which adds more background/relevant/related information. At least for me, the more I know about a subject, the more angles I'm aware of, and the more context I have, allows me to not only absorb it better, but it also allows me to develop or realize the theory behind the matter. From there, I can better apply what I'm reading/learning to other situations.

[semi-extrinsic]

I make sure to only browse HN, youtube, social media etc. on my phone. I don't have my various accounts logged in on the desktop. This way I can take a 5 minute HN/whatever break and actually go back to work again after 5 mins. Even my subconcious knows being on my phone is not working.

[Killswitch]

I do similar, but mainly by looking at comment count. Typically higher posts have large comments, and I just don't have the energy to read all those comments.