I don't normally have problems with akrasia, but this idea seems awesome. I'll have to try to implement it next time I can consider taking a day off.
I'm a little concerned about other people adopting my idea, because it doesn't seem that it would work for everyone. I recommend trying it for the first time when you're on vacation for a week and you want to use part of that vacation to work on a nonessential personal project you're being akratic about, like writing a novel or something.
People have been encouraging me to share my anti-akrasia tricks, but it feels inappropriate to dedicate a top-level post solely to unproven techniques that work for some person and may not work for others, so:
Go ahead and share your anti-akrasia tricks!
Let's make it an open thread where we just share what works and what doesn't, without worrying (yet) about having to explain tricks with deep theories, or designing proper experiments to verify them. However, if you happen to have a theory or a proposed experiment in mind, please share.
Bragging is fine, but please share the failures of your techniques as well – they are just as valuable, if not more.
Note to readers – before you read the comments and try the tricks, keep in mind that the techniques below are not yet
provensupported or explained by proper experiments, and are not yet backed by theory. They may work for their authors, but are not guaranteed to work for you, so try them at your own risk. It would be even better to read the following posts before rushing to try the tricks: