Here is something that I want to try:
Whenever I want to work on something, I'm just burdened by the fact that all my efforts will be useless, that the stuff won't be done and that I'll toil and toil and toil without accomplishing anything. Now, this sort of thing is pretty common for me -- worries about my confidence and intelligence not withstanding.
Sometimes this pressure is really discouraging and overburdening that I want to avoid work just to avoid that horrible feeling of having made no progress.
So I want to have "work" days in which I'll specifically experiment fruitlessly - I'll just do what I want without any pressure about productivity.
Maybe I might have an explicit rule about not being productive.
This hopefully will allow me to experiment more and enjoy my work more...
But with strict deadlines looming, it seems difficult but we'll see...
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: