This may seem like a silly question but it's something that's been affecting me for a while now. With the sheer amount of information available in the world today I have simply become overwhelmed. My mind is in a constant racing state. It's calm but not calm if that makes sense. While I could very well be thinking about nothing or something specific like writing this message. My mind seems to have multiple levels. One of which is directed to what I am actively doing and one below it which seems to process information in a never ending manner. I am not actively thinking about these things but it's there. Articles and books to read, shows to watch, things to do in my personal life and at work. Career advancement. All of these things just never stop but I could be calm. I can sleep fine, they don't cause active anxiety. They just linger in the background. Shooting around saying me me.It's getting exhausting. I like to be informed. I like to know what people are talking about and like to be able to have a point of view. I like to have an opinion and be able to argue it. But I have realized it's just getting to be too much.
Currently my instapaper account has some 800 articles I have yet to read. Kindle has about 10 books I want to read. pinboard account has about 100 unread articles most of which are small books.
Any advice on what I should do? Do I just purge them?
[+] [-] hanoz|11 years ago|reply
2. Beware the rabbit hole. Whenever considering following a tangential link or taking time out from work for some infotainment diversion, fully consider that it carries a risk, which you cannot necessarily assess or control, that it will end up taking you a long way down. Take that first step by all means but in full consideration of the expected (statistically speaking) cost of doing so.
3. Rename your "to read" list "sounded interesting". Come back to it if something on it ever bubbles up from your subconscious as being relevant to the task at hand. Maybe.
4. Meditate, walk, write. These three activities above all others seem most widely recommended as reaping huge rewards in this arena, with a daily dose of around 30 minutes being a typical prescription for each. This is not from any long term personal experience unfortunately, but there's a near certainty at the back of my mind that a regime of these three each day would be transformative for me. A couple of observations on these I can draw from personal experience; the first two activities can be combined; and on the writing, pen and paper is to be recommended, and committing to throw it out at the end of the session is a marvelous cure for writers block.
[+] [-] zokier|11 years ago|reply
Maybe it is different in the valley or wherever, and of course highly dependent on your social circles, but not being able to comment any current affairs can make some conversations quite awkward. Personally I'd find that it would not reflect well on the person.
Also I would say that it is far better to choose your own news sources rather than rely on random regurgitations.
And this is coming from a person who does not follow news, and hasn't done so for most of his adult life. Ignorance is a bliss, but it is still ignorance.
[+] [-] ams6110|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zactral|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techdragon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] girvo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spydum|11 years ago|reply
I personally find that if I read world events/news/major tech sites in the morning, I find my mental capacity a bit strained at work for the rest of the day. If I limit my input in the morning to focused planning of the day, and VERY restricted reading (maybe one article/specific topic, or listen briefly to news radio on the way to work ~25min), I am much more productive and less stressed. It doesn't appear to matter the medium (read/listen/watch).
My theory is, there are only so many topics you can legitimately consume in a day, sort of like a quota system. It should be your primary job to decide in what priority you want to occupy your brain with.
Plenty of other posters mention sort of the same thing: decide what is of VALUE to you, not just interesting. The world is full of interesting information, but if all you do is consume it, what good was it to you? Reserve some time and mental capacity to put that information to use.
[+] [-] lolwutf|11 years ago|reply
Miraculously, that didn't drive them away and, now, just over a year of dating later, I've noticed I've developed new mental habits to train myself to remember details, in order to avoid the negative reinforcement of my S.O. nagging about my forgetfulness.
And, in practice, these days, I'm quite a bit more effective at identifying what details are relevant, reliably persisting them to memory if needed, and identifying/purging/ignoring irrelevant details, which actually end up getting in the way of storing the important ones (this, of itself, was a problem that, when solved, yielded lots of forward progress for this issue).
Sorry, I'm not sure if this is something you can very effectively optimize for (and maybe shouldn't!... 'seeking partner to help fight scatter brain'), but it's a true story, and one angle, at least. :)
[+] [-] calinet6|11 years ago|reply
It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship that does this—I've worked with people whose personalities balanced out mine, and together we had a similar good thing going on. Creativity and ability for the mind to wander is a great thing for inspiration and discovery, and then bringing in the focus is great for making ideas real.
So, seek out other people who balance your personality. The fact that your mind works the way it does is not necessarily bad, and there are people all around you who can compliment you.
[+] [-] noufalibrahim|11 years ago|reply
I think people do the same now with intellectual material. An economy of what you take in is a good thing. It makes you healthier and less worried. There's going to be a lot of stuff that you'll miss but that's okay. Most of it is going to disappear soon given the churn rate of tech. If you do need to indulge, do so in more foundational materials rather than the "library of the week" or "language of the month".
Another thing is to take up a hobby. Something non intellectual. Something physical is good, something artistic is fine too and explore that area on a regular basis - preferably daily. Don't (and this is serious) track all aspects of the hobby as many people do with devices. Stay offline and just lose yourself in the hobby for a while. Don't feel compelled to share every bit of your life social media networks notwithstanding. You should have private compartments that are your own space.
Another useful bit of advice to have a "dry day" once a week. No going online. It's great to get yourself aligned again.
As much as technology has given us, I think it has a dehumanising effect. disconnecting on a regular basis is a good thing. You only gain from it.
[+] [-] patrickdavey|11 years ago|reply
There's also the idea of the "circle of influence" (i.e. worry / do something with the things you can _actually_ influence, forget about the rest - slightly comes back to the 24 hour news thing for me). Perhaps you might enjoy reading "The 7 Habits of Highly effective people"
Good luck :) You're certainly not alone.
[+] [-] jhki|11 years ago|reply
Other than that, you just need to accept that you'll never be able go through it all. And prioritize what's most important to your life. And sometimes just lay it all aside and recharge.
But meditation has really healped me with all of these. And in the end it's quite of a high-quality problem.
[+] [-] atrandom|11 years ago|reply
This book was written by one of early Google engineers who has learned meditation and created a class that he has taught to thousands of Google employees. Unlike much of other writing or classes on meditation this one is written in plain language and cites lots of neuro research. It is not even that long.
So go read first half of this book, practice it for 3 months and then reevaluate.
[+] [-] jbl|11 years ago|reply
For an easy introduction to this type of meditation, I highly recommend calm.com's five steps to mindfulness. You can find it on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/mayank-agrawal-14/sets/calm-com
[+] [-] javajosh|11 years ago|reply
I would caution that the instruction is given by video recording by S.N. Goenka, who is a man with great faith in Buddhist scripture, and that faith pops out pretty strongly in places (e.g. karmic rebirth). If you can forgive that, he is careful to stress that the practical aspects of the technique and that they are by far more important than theory. I know of no other teacher, organization or venue that offers 10-days of intensive meditation instruction on a donation-only basis, and putting up with a small and frankly harmless amount of magical thinking has actually been good practice for me over the years.
[+] [-] learningdiary|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rankam|11 years ago|reply
The following is just my opinion and I don't mean to be antagonistic. However, IMHO, your issue is that you think that being aware of topics is equivalent to truly understanding those topics. If you were really interested in those 100 unread pinboard articles, you would have read them - you seem to like the idea of knowing about the topics of the articles more than actually understanding the underlying concepts contained in the articles.
Stop trying to "be smart". If you're interested in an article - read it. Right now - try to understand it. If you read it and don't get it, find a writeup on the same topic written by a different person and read that. Continue this until you finally "get it". If you can't take 5-30 minutes out of your day to read something, you're likely not that interested in the topic. Your entire post screams that you don't know what you want to know nor how to manage your time. If you're serious about learning, start learning - and that means not adding another thing to any list until you have crossed off everything of your existing list. Instead of adding things to lists, make an effort to try to check things off of your list that already exists.
At the end of the day, life is all about choices - you can choose to continue to add things to your "to-do" list OR you can choose to start completing the existing tasks on your list.
[+] [-] leviathan|11 years ago|reply
You seem to think that a person has nothing else during his day than read every piece of news that comes their way. It might be a good idea to consider the fact that some people are extremely busy (with work or other tasks) but still want to stay informed. Those people would probably come across a piece of news or article that looks interesting, bookmark it to read later (because, you know, they have work now) and never get around to actually reading it because of work load.
If you can stop whatever you're doing and follow up every article that seems interesting to you, you might not be doing important work, or your time is very flexible to allow such a thing. It probably isn't a good idea to generalize that this can apply to everyone.
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
It's not always about knowing things in and out. I am in a position where I need to know a lot about a lot of things. If developers come with some new tech and want to do xyz. It's very helpful for me to know what xyz is. If non technical people or management comes with demands abc I need to know the bounds of it.
It's not great being in a meeting or on a phone call and not knowing what the other person is talking about. Not only does it make you look uneducated but it makes the other people lose respect for you.
To do what I want I don't need to know everything about a topic. But knowing the basics and its existence goes a very very long way.
I know a good bit about a lot of topics. Then in my specific field I know a lot more in depth.
[+] [-] RBerenguel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felipeerias|11 years ago|reply
Computer and desk are for work; leisure time should happen somewhere else, using something else. The more time you spend goofing off while in the exact same place where you work, the more likely you are to do it during work hours.
Staring for long hours at a screen can seriously mess up your sleep. If you want to read at night, do it on physical books, an e-book or a reading app with good night-mode (I like Instapaper as well).
When I need to focus and think about a problem, I like to leave the computer aside for a while, take pen and paper, and sketch possible solutions. Depending on your job, it could work for you as well.
Get out of the house. This depends on the person, but I have never really been able to focus when working at home: I always end up going to a cafe or library, as having other people around (even if they are strangers) helps me focus.
When I need to write a long letter or blog post, I often use my iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard. I lay back on a chair/couch, keyboard on my lap and iPad on a table in front of me, out of easy reach. The idea is to get in a comfortable position where the only thing I can do is type.
Finally, one has to accept the fact that it is simply not possible to keep up with the flow of new stuff. We need to prioritise, least we start forgetting the really important things because our minds are too full with cruft, too used to skimming through things without time for reflecting on them.
[+] [-] estrabd|11 years ago|reply
And to put it succinctly, minimize your information firehoses and reject the notion that you need to keep abreast of everything even if it is not relevant to you.
Purge all of your reading lists and resist building them. If you keep any lists or bookmarks, require that they be things you HAVE read and want to keep as reference for later. I do have a "toread" bookmark folder, but I almost never go back to read things there.
Visit only one or two tech sites a day. For example, I come to HN to the exclusion of almost anything else because it does a good job of showing only relevant things. But I limit this to 3-5 times a week and only when I'm bored. It's a good filter.
Lastly, get a personal project that serves as a good source of challenges. Use it to help decide if you should read about a particular technical topic. You'll find that this serves as a good filter, but at the same time you'll magically seem to read about things relevant to your technical challenges in a surprisingly timely manner.
HTH,
[+] [-] chubot|11 years ago|reply
One thing I do is take notes on most things I read. Just a couple sentences. This helps in several ways:
1) If you're not willing to take notes on something, it's not worth reading. So you read less.
2) It limits your rate of consumption, because writing takes time. So you read slower.
3) Having it written down and organized reduces the burden on your brain. It's like the GTD system. You want to relieve your brain of holding information. Your brain will know it is one click away if you have organized your notes properly.
4) When writing notes, you are relating it to things you already know. It forces recall. This prevents your brain from being just a jumble of useless disconnected facts.
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
I took one of those self tests and it came back ITSJ
[+] [-] t3rseCode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wkmeade2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoggle|11 years ago|reply
As somebody who unfortunately is only a fairly recent GTD convert I was wondering if you could elaborate more on why Omnifocus wasn't for you?
I was thinking of buying it for both my Mac and iPhone but I am still undecided as I don't know if it really is the right solution for me. GTD to me most of all is about honestly taking stock of our own shortcomings as human wetware (and pragmatically be OK with it) so I'm essentially asking myself if David Allen would rather be for some organic, haptic "real world" physicality at least..
[+] [-] _swa8|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|11 years ago|reply
This experience is always eye opening. It always makes me wonder what the hell I was doing with that smart phone all the time. I just got it back (!after 7 weeks!) and I do 3 days on a battery because I hardly check it. I lost the habbit. I feel much better, when I bike to work I don't have a podcast playing (Twit, No Agenda, yes I miss it, I even burned two No Agendas to a CD for a long car ride, had to dig around the attic for burnable cds :)), I'm not whatsapping during work, not reading long posts on he toilet. I have time to think. Think about what to do, what to learn, how the day will look like. This alleviates a lot of stress, just having a clear and relaxed picture of what your day will look like.
In short: Just stop it. Just Stop overloading your brain. You know exactly what is wrong but you are too weak. Stare out the window, go on walks without your cell phone, quit facebook. The world will not miss you.
I have a very strong feeling that when we stopped being bored, stopped waiting, stopped doing nothing, stopped staring and replaced it with constant consuming of information, we lost something valuable. And indeed, those apps are shortcuts to dopamine release, it is hard to stop. I admit, getting my phone back was like getting a new gadget, but I try to restrain myself from using it. One small trick is to do most thing in the browser, it does not put notifications in your notification area.
By the way, you posted your question here to find an easy way out, to get a tip like: Scratch your left nut for 3 minutes once a day and feel better. But there is no such advice. There is no shortcut. You are going to have to do something radical if you really want change. If you really want change, delete all those accounts, get a dumb phone.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. -Henry David Thoreau
It is hard work.
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
Thanks so much.
[+] [-] gravedave|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimfleming|11 years ago|reply
What do you need to do? What do you want to do? What things don't really matter to you?
Organize it on paper or whatever medium makes sense. I like OneNote and Trello. I've found its one of the easiest ways to remove those thoughts from the back of my mind is to put them someplace actionable and consistent. A stream of consciousness todo list isn't very productive.
With regards to instapaper or readability, either:
a) Treat it as a bookmarking service, not a read-later service. Then reference it when a topic comes of importance to what you wrote down above or you're just bored.
b) Clear out all 800 articles and start over, possibly being more selective or auto-clearing them monthly.
These are both things the brain does naturally, pruning through attention and focus and long-term storage for future reference :)
EDIT: Formatting
[+] [-] david_shaw|11 years ago|reply
I think jimfleming covered what I was going to say really well, but I wanted to really emphasize that for this to work, you need to be maniacally consistent with using the system.
I use Asana, and just keep a tab open next to my inbox. Sure, having a todo list helped from the start, but it took probably 2-3 months of consistently putting everything (and their anticipated due dates) into Asana before I could really trust the system. Now that it's ingrained into my workflow, though, I know that anything I need to keep track of is there.
Once you get to that stage, it's like a whole different life -- seriously.
[+] [-] journeeman|11 years ago|reply
If possible, try to work on something of interest that will take time, focus and patience to achieve, like a painting or writing poetry or coding something way beyond your current skill level. That would help your mind to calm down and focus. Hope this helps.
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] traviswingo|11 years ago|reply
But, I can understand and relate exactly to what you're going through. The only difference (imo) is that my over-active mind has actually led to some pretty bad anxiety that I'm just recently being able to cope with and manage. I was at a point about a year ago where there was so much stuff happening around me and so many things I was constantly trying to process (work, school, private projects, potential startup ideas, relationships, family, etc.) that I would end up in the hospital from panic attacks, seemingly from information overload.
What i did to cope was seek therapy - and I actually only did that for about five sessions until something clicked. I've since been able to simply prioritize things in my mind and ignore things I deemed irrelevant. This has helped immensely. Also, I've taken up meditation to really train my brain into not getting so distracted so I can focus on only one thing at a time when I need to.
You're definitely not alone here. We've spent our entire lives consuming information at a level that we're not actually designed for, it'll take some time to train yourself to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austenallred|11 years ago|reply
I got the Internet as a birthday present on my 8th birthday, and pretty much disappeared from normal society for the next few years. The Internet was (and is) fascinating - I could learn anything, interact with people I'd never met with, and, notably, do adult things without anyone doubting me because I was young.
But as I got older, the Internet, and therefore my mind, just got busier. Eventually it was not only random articles and a few chatrooms, but dozens of apps and sites that are programmed to give us a dopamine hit. Being online to me feels like walking around in a casino trying not to gamble.
I don't think I concentrated on one thing for more than 20 minutes for years, and outside of school I didn't have to. So I just convinced myself that school was archaic, skipped as much class as I could, and ended up a mental butterfly. It was working for me.
Except for when I wanted to get stuff done. I probably started learning to program 100 times, but I would get distracted with cat pictures or something, and even though I loved computers more than anything else, I couldn't do much to create with them. I was diagnosed with ADHD, but I didn't really care; I don't think that experience is unique to either me or people who have been diagnosed with ADHD.
Then, all of the sudden, I went on a Mormon mission in eastern Ukraine. Two years with 30 minutes of Internet a week (at an Internet club 45 mins away from my apartment). My entire life was structured in a way I never would have structured it in order to get me to concentrate on the things I considered most important for that period of time.
My mind slowed down - in an almost literal sense. I had only finished a couple of books in my entire life before the mission, and on the mission I could easily read the Old Testament for hours on end, paying attention to intricacies of text I never would have realized before.
Then I got home. I jumped on Facebook, and right back into my old habits. My mind was gone for weeks. Not gone in the sense that I wasn't learning anything -- I would pick up tidbits here and there, but I never got deep enough into anything to make any of that learning useful. It terrified me.
So now I spend a lot of time on very strict information diets. I severely limit my time on HN, Reddit, Facebook. I try to keep my reading on a Kindle so the Internet isn't even an option. I would love for someone to create an app (that works) that limits what sites I can use so I can go into "wired in" mode when I'm programming.
In short, don't be afraid to place restrictions on yourself. Let your mind slow down.
[+] [-] anabranch|11 years ago|reply
Works well. It cannot be turned off and you can set it for a specific amount of time. You choose the websites you would like to block.
Your phone is obviously a weak point, but it's a start.
[+] [-] sharkweek|11 years ago|reply
I half wonder if I am not meant to work in front of a computer the rest of my life. I sometimes think it would be more beneficial to pursue something more blue collar like becoming an electrician or something similar. Sure, access to a smart phone these days still provides plenty of access to distractions, but what if my job wasn't so involved with actually NEEDING to be in front of a screen all day?
No idea if I could ever make the leap, but I do often see the appeal.
[+] [-] robbiep|11 years ago|reply
Great productivity booster
Edit: whoops forgot the link. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...
[+] [-] brm|11 years ago|reply
You can eliminate large swaths of the internet from loading in your browser and control what sets of sites are blocked when.
[+] [-] nitrogen|11 years ago|reply
The only solution that worked for me, which I figured out years later, was controlled caffeine intake with just the right calorie balance plus an interesting career that isn't affected by delayed sleep phase. With those two things, my motivation increases, scatterbrainedness decreases, and I can get significant things done.
[+] [-] iron_codex|11 years ago|reply
Anyways, it's bit of a time consumer setting up said software initially but you benefit from a lot of angles once done. (Network security, content management, less likely to back track on systems that take more work to implement, as well as having a sophisticated and global system across all devices routed through the proxy server.) I believe some software packages even allow for the management of access times as well as content type. White list only a couple sites/ url's / IP's you use and white list them for only the time you need to be able to use them. Have someone else change the computer password on the server that you trust and boom. Just don't get distracted trying to circumvent security now...ha ha
Just a casual suggestion based upon experience as a school system administrator. Normally though if I am having a problem that starts in the mind, I develop a solution that either starts there or starts at whatever triggers it in my mind. Just a thought. Hack yourself you know?
[+] [-] charlespwd|11 years ago|reply
1. Put yourself on an information diet, and
2. Filter out any reading that you cannot turn into an actionable item.
For instance, I have pocket open right now. There's an article named "Cache is the new RAM". I just removed it. Why? Yes. It is interesting. But the information cannot be translated into something of value with respect to what I do.
Believe me, you won't miss out on the things you forgot existed.
[+] [-] dyadic|11 years ago|reply
My own problem was being too attracted to novelty, every little bit of information that arrived in front of me was the most important piece of information in the world. But, before I could act on it, the next piece would arrive. This manifested in me having a long lists of books and articles to read, things I wanted to do, things I wanted to learn, and, eventually, dissatisfaction because I couldn't keep up with it all.
I "solved" my own problem by just routing every distraction as it arrived into a look-at-later list. Then when later arrived I'd scan through, decide what was actually worth following up on and just delete the rest. If you do this then you will realise how unimportant most of those distractions were.
Going onwards the key is not to have 10 books and 800 articles and 100 more articles, I'd suggest purging them. Focus on one book, ignore the rest. After you finish that first book then pick one of the rest. If some of the books were just bought on a whim and you don't have the enthusiasm to read then just delete them, it's not a problem, no one will judge you. Delete all of the articles, if they're important enough then you'll see them again.
Afterwards, don't buy any more books until you've finished the ones you have. Notice the difference between not wanting to read a book that you have and wanting to read the one you're thinking about buying. Is it really important? Do you need it now?
With the articles, continue to use Instapaper, it's a great way to avoid the immediate distraction. But only keep a limited amount of things in there. Notice how quickly you add new articles and how quickly you read them. If you're adding faster than you can read then delete the surplus. And if you notice the list becoming unwieldly then delete them all and start again, you won't miss anything, nothing is that important.
The same idea applies to many things, remove the impatience of "now!" and it's easy to view and prioritize them. You'll never be able to do everything, so just do the things that you want most and purge the rest. They're not important, it doesn't matter.
[+] [-] jib|11 years ago|reply
Most of those systems focus on aggressive prioritization and removing lists of tasks from your mind and moving them to paper.
Be aggressive about not storing stuff anywhere else. I used to have 10+ items that I semi-actively thought about - now I've reached a point where I have nothing at all loaded as "I must think about this/remember this/do this" - that stuff is all written down.
After that its just practice and repetition. Any time "I should do X" pops up, write it down in your system, or say "thats ok, I have it written down in the system" if you already have.
Doing this isnt all good - there are times that I miss having a long list spinning in the back of my head. It means you need to load the list actively if you're actually going to have discussions about what you are planning to do. Its weird in the start to go "Uh I have no idea, let me check" if you're asked what you're doing today/this week or asked if you have some great ideas about random topic X. But its overall a lot more effective to be focused on whatever you are actually doing rather than what you could be doing.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|11 years ago|reply
- Avoid the news. 99% is rubbish and the other 1% isn't going to have any effect on you. If anything is important enough you'll hear about it anyway (from talking to people, Facebook, etc). I only read HN and a few Reddits regularly now, but even most of that is rubbish. If you hear about a news topic that is interesting to you, sure go read into it, but you aren't going to gain anything from constantly checking the news 'just in case' you miss something.
- Don't care about TV / movies / books / articles. Nothing you read / watch is going to dramatically change your life, so don't feel you are missing out. Again the good stuff will bubble up to you somehow. (Don't care doesn't mean don't consume, I still take a break to watch shows and movies every so often, but I don't do it religiously). After Google Reader shutdown I didn't bother finding a replacement and I don't feel any less of it now.
- Meditation. There are lots of different branches of meditation, rather than focusing on a single problem the one I do has you focus on thinking about nothing. You just need to observe any thoughts instead of following them, and eventually your mind will be silent. It's leads to greater mindfulness which means being present in the moment rather than thinking about the past or future.
[+] [-] MichaelGG|11 years ago|reply
To start, minimize intake. When I tried to stay on top of things, I found it weighed me down, limited productivity, and didn't _really_ help. Skimming topics is almost as useful as actually reading them. The benefit there is that you acquire a lot of assorted bits of background info, which might come in handy. But you don't need to deep dive and worry about getting through all the material. Just knowing it's there is enough. And even then, consider limiting the scope.
The whole "being informed, having an opinion, arguing" -- it's really not productive. I look back over all my HN interactions, and the vast majority of it isn't really productive. Your opinions don't matter, and nor do the arguments. If I spent the time I've wasted saying shit on HN doing something useful (even reading fiction books), it'd have been better spent. (Now reading threads I've learned a lot, and getting some of my statements corrected has been useful.) But there must be some low-level psychological drive, since here I am. Mostly it comes from periods of boredom or depression, where I can't get over the initial impulse to work. Eliezer covers it here[1].
When I've taken HN breaks for extended periods of time, and I don't fill in that gap with another "news" source, I start to feel more peaceful, focused, content.
1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/3kv/working_hurts_less_than_procrast...
[+] [-] coned88|11 years ago|reply
Good point.
> The whole "being informed, having an opinion, arguing" -- it's really not productive. I look back over all my HN interactions, and the vast majority of it isn't really productive. Your opinions don't matter, and nor do the arguments. If I spent the time I've wasted saying shit on HN doing something useful (even reading fiction books), it'd have been better spent. (Now reading threads I've learned a lot, and getting some of my statements corrected has been useful.) But there must be some low-level psychological drive, since here I am. Mostly it comes from periods of boredom or depression, where I can't get over the initial impulse to work. Eliezer covers it here[1].
Another good one. It doesn't matter.