Simple Productivity Hack
I'm working on something which is not interesting nor time critical. Before I realize what I've done, I’ve opened a new tab, typed in Y or R and pressed Enter. The page loads in milliseconds. My eyes are feasting on my Reddit or Youtube feed, hunting for a quick dopamine boost to distract me from the mundane task at hand. Courtesy of their sophisticated recommendation algorithms, I usually succeed.
Over the years, I've tried several strategies to curb this impulse. Most of them have involved the use of Chrome extensions to block entire domains while working. But this approach has backfired when I've genuinely needed to access a specific Reddit post or a YouTube video (ex. for background coding music). The hassle of temporarily disabling the block in these situations has turned me against the approach completely.
Recently, I stumbled upon a better solution. Turns out Leechblock has a regex feature. It’s a bit hidden. You need to click Show Advanced Options. I can use it to block only the homepages of the problem sites. For example:
www\.(youtube|reddit)\.com/?$
This will block me when I try to access reddit.com or youtube.com but I can still access youtube.com/feed/subscriptions or reddit.com/r/books.
Pretty great and super simple. So simple that I'm surprised I didn't think of this before.
While testing this, I also discovered that it is possible to mute subreddits, so posts from that subreddit don't show up on my home feed. I've since muted all the subreddits I'm a member of. Now even when I go to Reddit, my home feed is empty. This is a handy option in case you don't want to add reddit to the regex but still want to shield yourself from their algorithmic suggestions and ads.
I've told Leechblock to block the above regex (and a few more site homepages) from 0000-2400.
Aside from helping me be more productive, this approach has also made me more conscious and deliberate in my usage of sites like Reddit and YouTube. Every visit forces me to pause and ask myself how I want to use that site. What channel do I want to watch this time? What subreddit do I want to catchup with? Am I just here because I want to avoid the task at hand? Often the answer is yes.