News.YC detrimental to hacking? | Hacker News Reader

News.YC detrimental to hacking?

26 pointscstejerean22 comments

I love surfing around news.YC and checking on the latest submissions, I learn a great deal of stuff this way. But I noticed a scary trend recently. When I started visiting news.YC on a regular basis the amount of work I got done for my startup decreased significantly.

I currently only can work on my startup outside of my full-time job and I find that news.YC is essentially competing with my startup for time (and sadly winning). I know this is due to lack of discipline on my part but I was wondering if anyone else experienced something similar.

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I got invited to an interview, what'll I do?

I got rejected, what'll I do?

PHP sucks.

C# sucks.

Microsoft sucks.

Ruby rules!

Best. Interface. Ever.

Scientists in Sweden produce Britney Spears in a petri dish.

pg is great.

Where can I get the best corporate lawyer in the world for free?

Anyone want to buy some legal drugs?

Ask YC: When I sit too long in this chair, my back hurts. What should I do? YC: Switch chairs.

YC should start a franchise in Europe.

YC should start a franchise in Latin America.

YC should start a franchise in Asia.

YC should start a franchise in Brooklyn.

Ask YC: I don't know how to code? How can I build a web app that makes a million dollars by Tuesday?

Ask YC: I need motivation. Any hints?

There. You just read all of today's YC news. Now close your browser and get to work.

You forgot:

Lisp is great

Why are people in big companies so dumb?

Why FaceBook sux

Why FaceBook rocks!

Why are we talking so much about FaceBook?

Google is good

Google is bad

Google is misunderstood

How can I get Google to buy my company?

And you forgot:

Ask YC: How can I write Facebook in Lisp by next Tuesday?

I love||hate apple... steve jobs is so brilliant||crazy!

I can't believe you modded me down!

Zero to rich with Ruby on Rails in 30 days.

Google clones DHH in a petri dish.

Non-hacker wants to make next Facebook with tag cloud. Plz help!

Where can I find a hacker to build my brilliant Web 2.0 AJAX idea for free and for no equity? Thx.

Easy solution: Let it interfere with your full-time job instead of your of your startup! Problem solved.

/me dusts hands

Use news.yc to motivate you: Post here what improvement you're going to make to your startup in the next week, then go do it. If you don't do it I volunteer to ridicule you. Would that motivate you?

If you post "I'm going to make improvement X" to my startup and later write "I did improvement X" you would add some much-needed variety to news.yc. You'll also be admired as someone who's actually doing something. Would that motivate you?

Get more motivation first. Use self-discipline when there's no other option. Once you're motivated, without even thinking about it you'll cut your news.yc reading down to just the really useful stuff.

This is a really cool suggestion. I'll try starting this weekend. If I don't meet my goals by the following week I'll owe anyone who notices a beer (either when they come to Chicago or when I visit wherever they're located).

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=69119

I think nostro was on point with that post for both burnout, and reading too much hacker.news. I think we're all afflicted with it to some extent because we're invested in this community, so we kinda like to catch-up on the going-ons of our community. However, if it's taking over to the point that you can't get work done, that should indicate that whatever your startup is just isn't interesting to you, or has no meaning. Ideally, your startup idea should be something you're glad you did on your deathbed. Otherwise, you might as well work for someone else.

Sometimes, I forget why what I'm working on has any meaning. It's easy to get lost in the details. That's why it helps to write down a clear and concise vision, so you can refer back to it.

That said, you just have to know how you work best. block hacker.news when you work best. open the floodgates when you have your low points in the day. It's different for everyone.

I started a year and a half ago to live without a home internet connection to save money. It ended up being a rather substantial productivity boost. I'd recommend it.

That's not a bad idea. I still have an internet connection. When I starting coding, I unplug from the cable modem. I'm too lazy to plug it back in so I get several hours of work done that way.

To state the obvious: 1. to do good work, you must isolate yourself from distractions.

2. The internet is a distraction

3. The conundrum: you often need an internet connection to test your work, learn more about something new, communicate with your team/repository/bug-tracker.

I've seen a simple utility to block certain sites when you're working, but the most powerful solution is between your ears.

The solution to this is simply to add the site to your outgoing firewall until you've gotten a good day of productive work done. Afterwards you can remove it and your usage will hopefully return to normal. It worked for me, at least.

That solution is too specialized. You should simply hire a person to whip you when you aren't working. He can use his intelligence to cover many more cases than your firewall.

He must whip it.

He must whip it good.

He? I prefer a woman. In a leather catsuit.

Oh yeah, great idea. That would really solve his "I'm distracted from my startup" problem.

Depending on how old/nerdy he is, she might only distract him for a minute or two... snickers

i have thought about that too, my firewall even has the ability to block certain sites during certain hours, but i figure that I will just end up trying to hack my own router.

not because i really want to, but because it would become a game for my self.

who knows maybe then i would end up starting an info sec company instead.

I have just create a Greasemonkey script that replaces the contents of a page with the words "Get back to work!". Not perfect (you see a flash of the website before the content is replaced), and not as elegant as a firewall perhaps. But it might be easier to manage (Tools->Greasemonkey->Manage user Scripts -> enable/disable or add/remove site).

To be found at http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13290

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Yep

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