zlacker

None of those ways are sustainable. Not only because there are good reasons to use those apps, but also because there are times when forcing yourself to work isn't going to work. I mean, if I am sick, tired, and just not feeling like working, I would go out of my way to beat the system I installed.

What has worked for me is: one-sec extension [1]. The extension asks you take a deep breath and confirms if I still want to open the app. What I have realized is I don't want to completely do away with time-sink websites, I only want to moderate my behavior of pressing Cmd-T and opening reddit/youtube/twitter in the middle of work. I have increased the length of the pause to 30 second and I am actively forcing myself to actually take the deep breath. Such a pause is enough to knock enough sense into me and return back to work. I think such kind of gentle nudging is better than being overly harsh on yourself.

[1]: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/one-sec-website-blo...

>>shubha+(OP)
I love the onesec extension and I've often thought society would be better off if this were the way Apple and Google implemented their app timer functionality on iOS and Android. If you could just mark certain apps as addictive and be given a simple few-second prompt before displaying each of them, it'd stop or soften a lot of the addictive loops, I think. I use onesec app on Android solely to do this to YouTube, but the fact that it isn't native introduces some weird bugs, especially when opening YouTube links from other apps (which I live with anyway, but alas).

>>shubha+(OP)
I think any app that tries to minimize your usage needs to have mays to moderately allow that usage. Black and white thinking, particularly at the beginning, seems likely to fail.

>>darkho+dZ
I think you have to just treat this like any other addiction.

I feel like I compulsively play chess online. I had not slipped up from 1/1 until last night. Then I really fell off the wagon tonight and played about 10 games.

It sounds ridiculous but I just have to put that behind me and get back to not playing online chess. I can play in person for fun but not the mindless waste of time chess has become for me online.

For me at least, it is always much harder to moderate than to go cold turkey with basically anything.

>>dutchb+052
oof same here brother. chess is killing me. i go cold turkey but i come back eventually. one idea is to replace it with something and then ditch the replacement. or just capitalise next time there’s enough momentum built up for wanting to get rid off of it. i did do it before though, went not playing for months. but when it’s it’s back for good