[runjake]

I think that the key here is persistence and self-forgiveness for setbacks.

You have a setback and return to mindless browsing. Don't drop it all. Note it mentally, review how it happened, make any necessary adjustments, forgive yourself and get back on track.

Some weeks will be total trainwrecks, but the key is to get back on the track, back onto your long-term game plan ASAP.

Gradually, your behaviors will shift with this persistence.

[NalNezumi]

self-forgiveness is definitely a key, but also analyzing the failure fairly is also tremendously helpful. Trying to remove all distraction, and going on/off on a "wave-like" rebound pattern is very common, and sure persistence might help for some.

A slightly more fool-proof approach is to try to do a introspection on "how" and what part of the distraction you are coming back for, and gradually remove these.

For example, I had problem with Facebook long time ago. I tried to delete it from phone, block news-feed on browser with extension, but still couldn't get rid of it entirely. After a bit of introspection, I realized checking facebook is actually not a problem at all, getting stuck on it was. So, I took my time to analyze what part of facebook did steal my attention. I pin-pointed it down to a couple of news pages, group & liked pages, and about 90% of my friends posts. So I blocked all the news pages, groups & linked pages, unfollowed 90% of my friends.

I still check facebook, but each time I check it, its about 20-30 sec MAX, and since the content is 99% boring or insignificant, it doesn't steal my attention at all. When facebook became this to me, deleting it (and NOT re-installing) from the phone became a very painless process.

Hacker News is my new hit though.