In preparation for moving more of my personal laptop’s setup into git and Chef, I spent a few minutes this morning taking stock of what I had floating around my home folder on my personal laptop.

I found a small script I wrote when working on my thesis to help me avoid distractions. Since I thought others might be interested, I put it up on Github and added a bit more user friendliness:

gsd: A small utility to get stuff done

gsd helps you get work done by replacing your host file with a custom host file kept in ~/.gsd/. The custom host file prevents you from visiting sites that distract you from the work you need to get done.

To start using the filter, simply clone the git repo and install the script

> git clone git@github.com:stevendanna/gsd.git
> cd gsd
> sudo make install

Then, enable the filter

> sudo gsd enable

Finally, add sites to the filter and reload when you find yourself being distracted by them:

> gsd add lkml.org
> sudo gsd reload

With a bit of searching, one can find a number of these types of scripts online. My favorite that I’ve come across so far is Get Shit Done, which works on Windows and includes some logic to restart your systems networking services.