| I used to have this problem, where I could fall into these deep rabbit holes optimizing todo management, editor configuration, notes, Linux desktop configuration etc. With age I have gotten better at recognizing them and avoiding them by just picking good-enough solutions. An example of a rabbit hole few years ago: I got the NixOS bug a wanted to declaratively define my whole system and dot files with Nix. Many hours were spent making everything declarative and the setup required regular maintenance (things change/break all the time in nixpkgs). At some point I realized that I can set up a Mac in a good-enough state in an hour or so, and I do a clean macOS install maybe yearly. One hour in a year was far less time than maintaining a declarative system (still great for managing many servers though). Example of avoiding a rabbit hole recently: I wanted to do more note taking. I recognized that this can be a potential rabbit hole for me. So I just chose what everyone recommends (Obsidian) and use it as a simple note store without thinking much about structure (we have search). Deep rabbit holes are only worth it, if it concerns our main work and the outcomes are potentially very positive (like if you are working on performance in a product and a deep dive could potentially remove a nasty bottleneck). tl;dr: train to recognize your rabbit holes/nerd snipes, and learn to say no to them. You might still fall into a hole occasionally, but that is part of the learning process. You’ll get better at recognizing them earlier. |