I suspect this is not an uncommon problem. I have found a solution that works pretty well, though (though it's nothing fancy): don't do that.
By that I mean, when you find yourself faced by one of those waits, and are about to switch to some time-sucking activity, ask yourself, "will I really stop this before the wait is over, or I lose track of time?"
I've lost so much time to these sorts of things that I do one of two things during the wait. 1) I just stare at that progress bar. Boring, but at least I won't find myself reading Wikipedia in an hour or something. I know that I'll only waste 10 minutes instead of an hour. Alternatively, I 2) spend a few seconds thinking of a task that won't suck me in but needs to be done. For example, I go through my code and see that everything's formatted well, or commented well. Or answer a few emails (I don't tend to get sucked into emails, I know some do).
You have to train yourself to respond right when you feel that tug of "what can I look at next?" You end up telling yourself "no" hundreds of times a day. It's a challenge, but it's worth it.
I suspect this is not an uncommon problem. I have found a solution that works pretty well, though (though it's nothing fancy): don't do that.
By that I mean, when you find yourself faced by one of those waits, and are about to switch to some time-sucking activity, ask yourself, "will I really stop this before the wait is over, or I lose track of time?"
I've lost so much time to these sorts of things that I do one of two things during the wait. 1) I just stare at that progress bar. Boring, but at least I won't find myself reading Wikipedia in an hour or something. I know that I'll only waste 10 minutes instead of an hour. Alternatively, I 2) spend a few seconds thinking of a task that won't suck me in but needs to be done. For example, I go through my code and see that everything's formatted well, or commented well. Or answer a few emails (I don't tend to get sucked into emails, I know some do).
You have to train yourself to respond right when you feel that tug of "what can I look at next?" You end up telling yourself "no" hundreds of times a day. It's a challenge, but it's worth it.