[ideamonk]

Nice effort. Having tried RescueTime and more crazy tools last year, I realized it's in the doing. If you enjoy it nothing can distract you. If you really don't enjoy it from inside (i.e. if your ends are not aligned with the going), nothing can help you. It's better to alter your mindset about your work. Spending 3 days on that = lesser distractions for long time.

[Arelius]

Your statement is a bit unclear, in particular, this part "I realized it's in the doing." What's in the doing?

> It's better to alter your mindset about your work.

Elaboration on this would be interesting.

[goblin89]

According to temporal motivation theory (TMT), perceived utility of a task diminishes with growing temporal distance to the reward. [0]

The reward of working is usually distant and sometimes low in expectancy, as is the punishment for not working. At the same time, rewards of socializing (as one example) are almost immediately available anytime. The value of working is originally higher—you get paid for that, after all—but its utility after expectancy and time discounts may well be lower. It would rise as potential reward or punishment gets closer, but we will procrastinate until it beats the utility of posting comments on HN.

So, in order to fix that, we would like to reverse the ratio of utilities.

One solution is to artificially restrict access to distracting activities. In terms of TMT, their utility would be lowered because of some effort necessary to overcome the restrictions. However, over time we need less and less effort, and the utility is up again.

Conversely, ideamonk's suggestion—enjoying the process of doing—effectively raises the utility of the task so that distractions can't compete. It might take effort to learn that, but the effects are arguably more pleasant and permanent.

[0] Utility = (Reward Expectancy × Value) ÷ Delay. See Integrating theories of motivation by Steel & König and The Nature of Procrastination by Steel.

[SkyMarshal]

Fat-finger downvoted you, meant to upvote, sorry. Hope someone can undo.

[vshade]

When I'm really enjoying what I'm doing, I can go for hours wihtout getting distracted by the internet. If what you are doing is more interesting than browsing the web, you will not interrupt it, how many times when you are reading, playing, or just talking you get distracted by the internet?