[ideonexus]

News is my weakness. I unfollowed all the news pages on Facebook and have made it strictly friends, which is so much less interesting that I only check it once a day. My problem is the HuffPo, DrudgeReport, FiveThirtyEight, GoogleNews cycling through again and again, desperately seeking those little dopamine hits when I get a scrap of gossip or bit of slightly novel information. This link has inspired me to reinstall the chrome extension StayFocusd, which allows you to flag sites as "restricted" and limit the amount of time you spend on them to 10 minutes or more/less. I've found it incredibly helpful in the past, but it's like calorie-counting, I have to remain vigilant as an interesting news cycle can make me disable the extension.

I agree with you completely about finding more productive tasks. Every minute I'm reading an article is a minute I'm not writing or programming. I'm currently trying to rewire my brain to open Google Drive on my phone instead of a news site so I can thumb-type some writing while I'm at the playground with my kids. If I can spend all those little moments typing out a few words of a story or novel or spend my lunch break knocking out a web app for my kids, they will all add up to mountain of productivity I can take pride in.

I'm curious what others here do to keep from websurfing all day? What are your productivity hacks to stay focused?