| IMO, the specific situation you're describing (wanting to check in on HN) does not have a 1:1 relationship with the bigger picture you're associating it with (focusing in general). I've discovered that I also periodically want to check HN, imgur, etc periodically. Fundamentally, this is because I really (really...) need to setup an intelligent social tracking system that tells me about interesting things that I will probably want to intervene in RIGHT NOW, whether inconvenient or not, because of some ascribed value (for example being able to comment on a relevant discussion, reach out to someone in the context of some opportunity, etc). I primarily check in on HN for this reason; "is there relevant discussion happening right now." While I don't have the system I just described, I'm trying to be it myself. Of course this doesn't really scale or work, but it's incredibly fun to pretend I'm competently keeping up with everything because the activity of "just making sure" is one of those simple, predictable activities that has statistically low
chance of disappointment (or concrete negativity/malice) and statistically high chance of low-effort reward (except for those 183 times where it was boring, which I ignore those because superstition is powerful), and... oh hey, there goes my day. When I realized this recently I was able to at least stare the problem in the face. Now I can work on swinging in the direction of closure for this whole... thing of "keeping up" that I've deliberately been cultivating lack of closure of, for the sake of addiction, and hopefully get myself focused and back on track. I guess the "one level up" scope/domain from this would be "online distraction", rather than focusing in general. I said a few related things on the subject a couple months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15418671#15423170 And I commented on the value of supplements in this thread over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15904764 |