Show HN: A Firefox extension to break the habit of typing distracting websites(addons.mozilla.org) |
Show HN: A Firefox extension to break the habit of typing distracting websites(addons.mozilla.org) |
browser.urlbar.autocomplete.enabled
browser.urlbar.suggest.bookmark
browser.urlbar.suggest.history
it does not literally stop me from typing in for example "news.ycombinator.com", but it makes it so that I have to type every last one of those 20 characters, which leaves enough time between my (impulsive) decision to act and my (fast and nasty) reward to prevent most instances of procrastination.
(then I put frequently-accessed URLs that do not cause procrastination on the Bookmarks menu and the Bookmarks toolbar.)
I think it'd still be a good idea to leave auto-complete on for useful websites -- you've taken care of that by adding those sites to the bookmarks =)
If I had found a way to arrange for a URL to stay off the list of candidates (even after I visit the URL) I would have used that because, as you point out, it is a good idea to leave auto-completion on for useful web pages.
At least my Firefox does, and I don't think I customized that particular aspect of Firefox.
I seem to recall someone here saying that Firefox decided not to combine them (location and search fields) for privacy reasons. In particular, the user can be sure that anything typed into the location field is never sent to Google's autocompletion servers.
I could be wrong about the things I said in this comment, though.
Unless you mean the search bar?
browser.search.suggest.enabled = false
browser.search.suggest.enabled = true
Also, if you find yourself desperately needing this, consider the possibility that you may want to get more/regular sleep, exercise, and better food. "Sleep is for the weak" is a load of horseshit. Your brain is a part of your body and you should take care of both. This got me through the last parts of undergrad and I am very grateful to the maintainers, but I wish I'd not needed it.
EDIT: there is apparently an app http://getcoldturkey.com/ for windows. I've never tried it though.
Also, Momentum for Chrome is a good replacement for the "recent pages" new tab screen: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...
I added the ability to turn it off as a feature after needing it! =). But yeah - there are heavier alternatives for heavier needs.
1) being told that this isn't the time to do something doesn't change that I feel it's time to do something. It just annoys me.
2) There's no substitute for simply making the choice to not go to those distracting web sites.
Distractions abound, but in my experience I've found that looking to technology to solve what is fundamentally an error in my thought process is a mistake. Changing the thought process isn't the easy way to go about it but it is ultimately the only way that's going to be effective in the long term.
Tools like this don't help much with that process[1]. Instead they provide [again, in my experience] a band-aid that helps cover the wound, so to speak - they let me avoid seeing that I needed to make changes.
[1] one benefit they do provide is to make you more aware of what you're doing.
I briefly used RescueTime's functionality for this. Eventually I actually settled on a separate browser profile for distracting sites. Basically, on my work Chrome, I only have productive sites, am not logged into any distracting services, or anything like that. I can use Chrome's user switching to open my "distracting" session, but the extra effort to do that helps me maintain focus.
It counts how long you are on an "illegal" website and only blocks when you exceed the limit.
It's fully customizable for timelimits and method of blocking.
It would be pretty neat if this was a website that I could point my blocked domains to
So, say you have a habit of typing in /r/cars ... I don't know how to block that using a hostfile, but with the plugin this won't be a problem.
How does one actually change the thought processes? Or begin to make progress changing the thought processes?
More seriously - I think it's key to realize that sidetracking to various websites isn't the actual problem - it's more a symptom of not wanting to do the task at hand.
Here's what worked for me: When I started to suspect that this was costing me more time than I realized, I figured to measure it. I just started writing the time down each time I mentally wandered off and started browsing, and then again when I stopped.
It didn't take long to see that this added up to a depressing amount - but the awareness of how frequently and how long was critical for me, and the brief pause where I 'had' to write down something when I was about to start was enough for me to check myself and do one of two things:
1. (more frequently) realize that I wasn't in a mental state to get back on task, and take a quick walk, get a drink, w/e. The time to do this is much less than the time I'd spend on noodling about, still let me get my mind off of it briefly, and often let me become aware of why I was avoiding whatever the task was.
2. just get back on task (this became easier with time, though 1) is still sometimes more beneficial)
Hmm, maybe I should make a plugin for that :D
In any event, this manual tooling to simply track what I was doing was enough for me, and it worked better than throwing artificial obstacles into my path.