I see this kind of thing from time-to-time, and it baffles me. Surely, I know how to restore access. Why not ... just not go there? And if it's a problem (again, this baffles me, but no judgement - I binge drink on weekends which is surely worse), delete your accounts there?
Friction. Friction delays taking an action. This is true for both things we want to do and things we need to do. So you want to reduce the friction involved in your actual goals (learning a subject, deploying a system, updating code), and increase the friction involved for things you want to avoid.
I want to avoid snacks and sodas. I've gotten good at restaurants (order a coke once a month, a dessert about as often). But the office snack bar. So I stopped carrying cash. When I do collect change, I occasionally treat myself to a candy bar or something from that snack bar but since I'm not spending as much cash, this is once every 2-3 months.
At the same time I keep my desk stocked with pistachios (in shells) or similar things that take too long to eat to just eat all at once, but are tasty enough that when I get peckish they still satisfy.
I want to learn more advanced math subjects. So I always keep a notebook on me and either the book I'm working through, or a printout of the chapter (if it's a PDF or something). So when I have downtime I don't have to seek it out, it's already here.
Having to restore access gives you many more seconds of time between impulse and gratification where you can catch yourself in the process and have the internal "the fuck are you doing? Is that video even going to bring you a modicum of happiness? Get back to work and we can do something actually fun later you adhd fuck" talk.
Does that work for you? Do you think it works in general? I do get the impulse to click on a link - and you are claiming that having to activate something (like I would do with uMatrix, I suppose?), makes you cognitively pause?
I guess we're all wired differently. That one doesn't seem to be a challenge to me (although, I can assure you that there are other unhealthy things that I wish I could figure out how to stop doing).
Adding friction doesn't work for me. But I can just say, "I don't facebook anymore. It's not a thing I do." And I stop. Fine, but there's still an itch that needs scratching. I bounce to instagram, reddit, imgur, news sites, then my favorite bloggers, in that order. There's always something. And as for facebook - I can't quit altogether. I manage a page for a small business, I have to test things for work, I want to promote my blog. So I can't do cold turkey, and I keep coming back. Fuck, I hate it so much.
It doesn't work for me. Editing a file isn't nearly enough friction to dissuade me. Even more advanced blocking programs didn't work for me. Instead of spending time browsing the internet, I spent lots of time figuring out how to circumvent the blocker. No work was done either way.
I'm still working on it. I fear the only viable solution is going to be to drastically change how I interact with computers and the internet.
There was a period of about a week where my home cable internet was down and I had to pair my phone with my computer in order to work. I don't have an unlimited plan and I was constantly afraid of running out of data, so I didn't go to any website I didn't absolutely have to. The fear of not being able to work when I needed to and getting fired was a good motivator. I immediately reverted to old habits when my internet came back for good.
Briefly, then it gets undone and left undone for a good while.
List making is the best option I've found so far but I still have issues with staying on track. It's the middle of my work day right now and here I am.
I give myself 90 minutes (or more, if I am lucky enough to get into "the zone") and then 30 minutes to farf off. Repeat. I don't often go to the office, so this usually continues for well over the 8 hours of work-time they pay me for.
It’s easy to fall into the habit of hitting ctrl+t when a browser is open and typing in some website that distracts you from what you should be focused on. That brief cannot-be-opened page is often enough to stop you so that you can reset your focus back to what it was you were supposed to be doing.
It doesn't work though. All of those sites have backup domains that easily allow you to access them. To properly block all of facebook, you have to block something like 30 domains.
It's so you can't log in and read stuff, or get sucked down a distracting click-hole of videos, jokes, chit-chat and bullshit. It breaks the reflexive bookmarks, links from other sources and general habitual url visiting.
No, I mean literally, if I paste those strings into my etc/hosts it won't block any of those sites. It simply doesn't work. You can still load the sites. It takes stronger measures to block them. I have to edit my hosts file all the time for work anyway, so I ended up installing SelfControl and I turn it on when I feel like I need it.
127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com