This reminds me a lot of Experiential Pica.
I agree with you that the issue for most people is motivation management, not time management- say I have 30-40 hours a week during which I could sit down to do homework, but I only have 10 hours a week during which if I sit down to do homework, homework will actually be completed. Once I acknowledge that, I can spend those other 20-30 hours a week doing things more valuable than looking at my homework and not doing it.
But I think we have more control over that than we think. Within this model, if I spend 20 of those hours relaxing, there might be 10 more hours I could accomplish homework during. There's also evidence that holding that model is what makes willpower expendable. (Of course, the alternative is some people have limitless wills and other people have limited wills, and they know how they operate.)
So deciding whether you'll listen to id or superego might not be the thoughts you verbalize, but the actions you take to prepare for that decision- the actual decision is an action, not a verbalization! If there are conditions you can place yourself in that strengthen your id or superego, knowing that and preparing accordingly is wise. dreeves' idea of wagering is a pretty good way to place a condition on yourself that confuses your id by introducing the desire to win a wager to the situation- but obviously there are other conditions that should be sought out.
There's also evidence that holding that model is what makes willpower expendable. (Of course, the alternative is some people have limitless wills and other people have limited wills, and they know how they operate.)
The study you cite saw an effect from manipulating theories of willpower, so self-knowledge isn't all that's going on.
A year and a half ago I wrote a LessWrong post on anti-akrasia that generated some great discussion. Here's an extended version of that post: messymatters.com/akrasia
And here's an abstract:
The key to beating akrasia (i.e., procrastination, addiction, and other self-defeating behavior) is constraining your future self -- removing your ability to make decisions under the influence of immediate consequences. When a decision involves some consequences that are immediate and some that are distant, humans irrationally (no amount of future discounting can account for it) over-weight the immediate consequences. To be rational you need to make the decision at a time when all the consequences are distant. And to make your future self actually stick to that decision, you need to enter into a binding commitment. Ironically, you can do that by imposing an immediate penalty, by making the distant consequences immediate. Now your impulsive future self will make the decision with all the consequences immediate and presumably make the same decision as your dispassionate current self who makes the decision when all the consequences are distant. I argue that real-world commitment devices, even the popular stickK.com, don't fully achieve this and I introduce Beeminder as a tool that does.
(Also related is this LessWrong post from last month, though I disagree with the second half of it.)
My new claim is that akrasia is simply irrationality in the face of immediate consequences. It's not about willpower nor is it about a compromise between multiple selves. Your true self is the one that is deciding what to do when all the consequences are distant. To beat akrasia, make sure that's the self that's calling the shots.
And although I'm using the multiple selves / sub-agents terminology, I think it's really just a rhetorical device. There are not multiple selves in any real sense. It's just the one true you whose decision-making is sometimes distorted in the presence of immediate consequences, which act like a drug.