noprocrast

I wrote a command line script called noprocrast. This script updates /etc/hosts to make distracting websites unreachable from my machine:

sudo cp /etc/noprocrast_hosts /etc/hosts

The corresponding /etc/noprocrast_hosts:

127.0.0.1 localhost db001 db002 db003 db004 web030 web048
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com
127.0.0.1 reddit.com www.reddit.com
127.0.0.1 twitter.com
127.0.0.1 nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

In case I really need to visit one of these sites, I use the following procrast script:

sudo cp /etc/procrast_hosts /etc/hosts
echo `date` >> ~/.procrasts

Then if I want to see how I have been doing with procrastination, I tail ~/.procrasts.

The /etc/procrast_hosts file is just:

127.0.0.1 localhost db001 db002 db003 db004 web030 web048
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

If you haven’t tried an /etc/hosts hack like this, I suggest giving it a try. You may be surprised by how much time you save.

Also see

• get-shit-done
• noprocrast (ruby gem)