Somewhat related: I've been having a lot more success keeping myself focused since I started using the fullscreen mode of iTerm to do my writing. There's no clock in the upper right corner of the screen to draw constant glances and I find myself less likely to randomly switch to other apps to check on my feeds, emails, etc.
It's even slightly helpful for getting myself started, since all I have to do is switch to iTerm and take a look at my notes, at which point I often just pick up where I left off and can continue undistracted. (E.g. this morning a quick app switch to remind myself where I was became a solid 40-minute session -- I was putting off breakfast to get stuff done!)
Along the same lines, earplugs (or in-ear phones if you work well with music) help too.
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: