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Comment on Ask HN: How do you deal with Rabbit Hole Syndrome?

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As with others on this thread, I question the rightness of "curing" this tendency. But you can certainly improve the way you harness it.

Something that's helped me: make sure you have multiple rabbit holes available at any given time. i.e. several problems, any of which is interesting enough to tempt you. Then you can make reasoned decisions about which would be the most rewarding to work on, while still giving in to the temptation of rabbit holing.

Another benefit: maybe by solving one problem, you'll discover the other was totally irrelevant, or a special case of the other. (At least for me, "Turns out I didn't need this to be perfect" doesn't carry much weight, whereas "Turns out I didn't need this at all" is quite convincing.)

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