As everyone I am constantly distracted on the Internet.
Distractions are a pain.
I do use SelfControl, a nice app for Mac to block websites that I know are a source of distractions. Like Reddit and news sites. It’s common for me to open a news site when I’m facing a problem I can’t solve or I’m doing meaningful work.
But sometimes I can’t really block a whole site. For example, StackOverflow can’t be blocked. Yet it really annoys me with some of its UI like the network questions.
Sometimes those questions are really interesting for the lizard brain looking for the optimal distraction to move you away from what you are supposed to do.
I pick this random StackOverflow page, and while I’m reading about some JS, I am interrupted by interesting questions like:
- Why would a medieval civilization leave newly discovered land undeveloped?
- When a planet loses atmosphere, where does it go?
I didn’t care about those topics before, but now I want to know the answer, just because I saw the question.
I am just trying to fix my problem, not distract myself more with random questions from random sites in the StackExchange network.
There’s a quick solution to solve this.
I use uBlock Origin and I just found out how to use it to block portions of a page with a simple click.
Click the uBlock Origin extension icon, click the picker icon to enter element picker mode, and then select one part of the page you want to hide forever.
Then click the “Create” button:
And it will be gone. Reload the page, it’s still gone.
This will bring back some bits of lost productivity until the next redesign, or when an HTML class name changes.
This should for any website, but in reality on some sites this is not that easy to make it work. The reason is the proliferation of automated CSS classes/ids. This method uses CSS to block out parts of a page. I tried on Twitter and selecting one block gave me this:
I’m not sure, but one could argue that this garbage is done on purpose. It changes on every rebuild, making it impossible to customize the page using this tool.
I can’t block Twitter completely as I sometimes use it, and I would like to block “Trends for you”, “Who to follow”, “You might like” and so on, so I can open Twitter without being sucked into an hashtag. But apparently I can’t do it this way.
More lab tutorials:
- The stack I use to run this blog
- 8 good reasons to become a software developer
- SEO for developers writing blogs
- Review of the book The 4-Hour Work Week
- Build a lifestyle business
- Build your own platform
- As an indie maker, what kind of product should you build?
- Create your own job security
- Developers, learn marketing
- The freedom of a product business
- Generating value
- Have a purpose for your business
- The idea is nothing
- The niche
- Remote working for software developers
- Product / market fit
- The best podcasts for frontend developers
- Why should I create an email list?
- Disconnect time from money
- The scarcity principle applied to software products
- The social proof principle
- How I added Dark Mode to my website
- My notes on the Deep Work book
- The pros of using a boring stack
- How to estimate programming time
- On going independent as a developer
- How to learn how to learn
- Why interview questions for programming jobs are so difficult?
- Do I need a degree to be a programmer?
- Everyone can learn programming
- How to be productive
- How to get the real number of pageviews of a static site
- Have you filled a developer bucket today?
- How I record my videos
- All the software projects I made in the past
- Tutorial purgatory from the perspective of a tutorial maker
- Every developer should have a blog. Hereβs why, and how to stick with it
- Having a business mindset for developers
- How to write Unmaintainable Code
- What is Imposter Syndrome
- How to work from home without going crazy
- How I stopped worrying and learned to love the JavaScript ecosystem
- How I prototype a Web Page
- You should be the worst developer in your team
- How to start a blog using Hugo
- Write what you don't know
- How to block distractions using uBlock Origin
- Coding is an art
- I wrote 1 blog post every day for 2 years. Here's 5 things I learned about SEO
- Dealing with the fire
- On being a generalist
- The Developerβs Dilemma
- My plan for being hired as a Go developer. In 2017
- Productivity gains of using a Mac and an iOS device
- How to go from tutorials to your own project
- This is my little Digital Garden
- How to start freelancing as a developer
- Sharing the Journey Towards Building a Software Product Business
- Subfolder vs subdomain
- How I use text expanding to save time
- Software is a superpower
- I love books