[morbidhawk]

I stopped using org-mode for a time after having invested a lot of time in learning all the cool stuff you can do because I felt like it was overkill and I was trying to do too much with it and organizing everything was becoming a chore. If you look at all it can do, it has so many capabilities (outlining, gtd, wiki, blogging, ebook publishing, presentations, time tracking, etc).

Recently, I came back to it just to use for code/programming notes and instead of trying to organize all the code into source blocks I went the other way and added in my own comments and questions in blocks that can be toggled on/off around the code that's there. Now the only org syntax I really use from org-mode is `#+BEGIN:` blocks for comments/questions I can quiz myself on and occasionally headlines when I want to organize something because it's in the way of reading the plain text. If I gave advice to someone new to it it would be to start with just plaintext notes and only add what you really need. You can quickly go overboad once you are trying to figure out how to do footnotes, file linking, exporting w/ images, source code execution, etc.

[_jal]

Not sure if it is the same thing, but I find myself sometimes procrastinating by noodling with software features. It isn't the fault of org-mode (or any other software), it is mine, for not being disciplined enough.

"Distraction free" apps don't work, because I frequently need to switch windows a lot and need some fancy features.

Really, the answer for me is to work on staying focused. (Perhaps a lobotomy would help.) But it isn't a problem with my tools.

[morbidhawk]

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

[type0]

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.

[gyrgtyn]

Oh you want to quiz yourself occasionally? There's a minor mode for that: org-drill http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-drill.html