INSTANCE: I used to spend hours online on StumbleUpon when I knew I had to get up early for class in the morning. It would be 2 AM, I would think to myself "It is just a really wretchedly stupid idea to keep clicking 'Stumble'", and yet I would keep doing it. Sometimes I would respond to myself "Just one more page" or "Just five more minutes", but sometimes I would just say "Fuck you. You don't deserve sleep." I think part of it stemmed from the perceived hassle of getting ready for bed: take out contacts, brush teeth, take meds, etcetera. It just seemed short-term easier to keep Stumbling, so I wouldn't stop until I either berated myself enough that guilt outweighed inertia, or fear of falling asleep with my contacts in convinced me to get up.
SOLUTION: Got married. My wife is much better at getting me into bed than I was. Would not recommend getting married just to combat akrasia.
The idea for this came to me when reading nyan_sandwich's "An akrasia case study." I outlined the idea itself in my comment in that thread.
So here's the plan:
Let me emphasize one more time that we are not looking for solutions in this thread. Please don't give each other suggestions! If you think you're on to something hot in terms of the "kicking" aspect of the Art, please show us with a description of how the technique worked for you on a specific instance - but share the instance first. The goal here is not to demonstrate that you have a clever anti-akrasia technique. The goal instead is to see what different instances of akrasia and attempts to tackle it actually look like.
If at all possible, please share both successes and failures. This is especially helpful if we can see successes and failures of the same technique. This helps to balance out positive bias and gives us a better idea of the parameters within which different techniques work. Be especially wary if you have a favorite anti-akrasia technique because of the subconscious desire to attempt to change reality by pretending your favorite technique is actually perfect. If you do have a favorite technique, please actively seek out its true weak points.
Let's crack this thing!