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I find that I have a habit of switching to the browser to find something that is related to work and then going off into a rabbit hole of related information. After half an hour or so, I figure out that I'm not doing anything that I'm supposed to be doing.
What I was thinking of doing was to start some sort of a timer the moment I've switched to chrome or opened it and after 5 minutes, the timer will pop up and tell me time's up. Is there a way to do this on windows?
I had a look at a few chrome extensions like stayFocusd, but they seem to deal with daily limits on browsing - that's not really what I'm looking for.
Other ideas on how I can fix this problem are also welcome.
Rory Alsop pointed me to this question and suggested that mine is a duplicate, but I believe otherwise. That question is a more generic how-do-I-avoid-distractions-on-the-computer question, while I believe mine is more specific to the workflow that I have. As Judy D pointed out in the comments below, the problem I have is that I need to use the browser for my work (like work email and searching for solutions to problems I face) and then I go off into other related websites and pretty soon I've spent half an hour more than I should've.
Can you describe the route of the rabit hole a bit more in detail? Somewhere you must be going from "good site" to "bad site". – Mårten – 2015-02-06T07:23:35.013
The answer to your specific question is easy:
Yes - just use any timer app
But in reality the problem is not the time, but the distraction aspect. Closing as duplicate of various posts here. – Rory Alsop – 2015-02-06T08:40:48.780
I'm not sure this is exactly a duplicate because the other question seems to deal with general limits to going on websites or avoiding specific websites. This question is about needing to go on various websites for work but then being pulled off course by the connected websites. Or needing to be in email to find something but then being pulled into other emails. So the normal solutions offered on the answers there would not work. – Judy D – 2015-02-07T09:41:27.353
@Judy D, you've nailed the problem. I do need to go to various website - my work email is web based, I need to search for solutions to problems I face while programming. And I can't say that I spend too much time on one specific website. It is more like I start with a website or email - follow the link on that or search for some interesting info from that and go off into a rabbit hole. So a timer which starts automatically when I switch to the browser and reminds me that I've been surfing for 5 mins now, will pull me back to the task at hand - I hope. – Rohith – 2015-02-07T15:54:10.487
@RoryAlsop just using a timer app won't work for me. I don't want a timer app working all the time - I want the timer to start when I switch to chrome. And I don't want to manually start the timer every time I start browsing - I'm pretty sure I will forget to start it. – Rohith – 2015-02-07T16:01:48.610