Distracting yourself from distractions by building an overly complex system to help you do that, and writing an article about it, is certainly a very HN-ish thing to do.
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I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
That's a skilled technical writer, that is.
Bookmarked. More please!
Alas, none of it is made up - honestly. My wife and I kept finding ourselves in the garden on a beautiful day scrolling reddit and instagram for up to an hour, on several occasions. We kind of know we're wasting our time, and we kind of want to, too. It's kind of a constant struggle of uber-me against animal-me and I really hope this moderation tool works how I image it.
After I read Neils post I've completed the entire setup - including blog post - in maybe three hours. So if this keeps me from doom scrolling for an hour at least three times, I've gained some time back.
Me and the wiff (not a spelling mistake! - very silly joke) find ourselves doing a similar thing and we are probably rather older than you (50-60).
The world is changing very quickly and who knows what is "right"? I love your approach and that your missus obviously supports your mild madness. You clearly have a great relationship.
Keep an eye on what is really important and don't "sweat the small stuff" as our US mates say.