This may be the single most useful thing I've ever read on LessWrong. Thank you very, very much for posting it.

Here's one I use all the time: When a problem seems overwhelming, break it up into manageable subproblems.

Often, when I am procrastinating, I find that the source of my procrastination is a feeling of being overwhelmed. In particular, I don't know where to begin on a task, or I do but the task feels like a huge obstacle towering over me. So when I think about the task, I feel a crushing sense of being overwhelmed; the way I escape this feeling is by procrastination (i.e. avoiding the source of the feeling altogether).

When I notice myself doing this, I try to break the problem down into a sequence of high-level subtaks, usually in the form of a to-do list. Emotionally/metaphorically, instead of having to cross the obstacle in one giant leap, I can climb a ladder over it, one step at a time. (If the subtasks continue to be intimidating, I just apply this solution recursively, making lists of subsubtasks.)

I picked this strategy up after realizing that the way I approached large programming projects (write the main function, then write each of the subroutines that it calls, etc.) could be applied to life in general. Now I'm about to apply it to the task of writing an NSF fellowship application. =)