[trefn]

I have a similar tic. I just edit my hosts file to redirect those requests to localhost. Then when I mindlessly navigate to one of those sites it doesn't work and I realize I did it unconsciously. I do the same for gmail because I have the same tic for checking my mail.

If I actually want to go to one of those sites I just edit the hosts file and comment out the redirect line.

On my mac, the /etc/hosts file looks like:

  # #
  # Host Database
  #
  # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
  # when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
  ##
  127.0.0.1 localhost
  255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
  ::1             localhost
  fe80::1%lo0 localhost

  127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com twitter.com www.facebook.com reddit.com
  127.0.0.1 mail.google.com

[Scarblac]

I do that too! But then of course there also the moments when I am really procrastinating and I remove them again... but that's a dumb excuse as it's much easier to solve than the subconscious problem, thanks for reminding me.