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Comment by Skroob | Hacker News Reader

If watching TV is distracting you from working on your company, you don't have to sell your TV, just stop watching it. You're going to be bombarded with distractions no matter what you do. Family, friends, beer, the whole internet in general, all have the potential to be really distracting. But you can't just throw them out or sell them at a garage sale, you need to learn to get stuff done with them in your life as well. If you don't have the willpower to simply turn the TV off, how will you have the willpower to say no to a night out at the bar with friends, or when you open a new browser window and reddit is just a few keystrokes away I'll only check out a few links then it's back to work oh look its 4am how did that happen?

Basically, stop blaming TV. TV isn't what's not getting the work done.

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My weakness is food. I'll eat anything that's in front of me or in the fridge. I'll just mindlessly snack on it until I'm uncomfortably full.

I live right across the road from a store and yet if there is no food in the house I won't feel inclined to go and buy more unless it's time for a meal. Then I buy exactly enough stuff to make one meal only with no difficulty restraining myself.

Result: I exercise a form of will power I do have and achieve my goal rather than failing to exercise a form of willpower I don't have.

Am I just fooling myself? Yeah. Maybe this guy is too. But if the outcome is positive then that seems smart to me.

This is true and smart. There is a quote in 'Cooking for Geeks' about this phenomenon from Michael Pollan. The idea is that Americans could fix their diets by eating smaller portions, but the simplest way to get people to eat smaller portions is a smaller plate. Changing your environment is easier that changing your behavior and it works. It's a powerful idea.

TV is the biggest mind-suck. Sure, it's partly my fault for allowing myself to be distracted etc., but it's no help that TV specifically has been purposefully designed to be the easiest and biggest distraction on the planet.

I was a coke addict, sure it was my own fault for getting into it, for enabling my own unhealthy habit. But it wasn't enough just to "stop blowing coke." I had to sever relationships with bad influences, I had to "throw coke out the window."

With that in mind, I'm going to of chuck my TV out the window, and despite what you might argue, I'm not just lying to myself. I'm improving my life.

It sounds like you have addiction problems, and I'm not saying that out of cruelty. But if you find yourself in several similar addiction patterns, perhaps it's time to take a deeper look at what's missing, else something else will creep in to fill the void.

Whoops I meant to delete this since it's a double-comment. I actually dont do coke, it was an example in which i used first-person to make it more meaningful

You're pretty much on-the-nose.

You can always make an active choice as to whether you'll be producing or consuming. With TV, you're guaranteed to be consuming.

There is nothing wrong with consuming. Sometimes your brain is fried, and you need to mentally recharge. However if you have the ability to produce, and you are not choosing to produce, you will fail.

For some, removing the consumption device makes it easier to produce since the choice the consume is no longer an option.

Thank you for being a voice of reason. TV is easy to hate because it can't defend itself, but it's not the enemy. The enemy is always within.

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