I'm quite a good morning-worker, but I tend to have a major slump after I've accomplished my first one or two tasks of the day. I need to take a break at this point, but sometimes this break turns into never actually managing to get started again that day at all.
So on days when I can, I trick myself into getting two morning-fresh-starts by doing my first task or two before my usual morning routine (shower, get dressed, etc. Breakfast is exempt from this because I don't work well at all when I'm hungry). When I run out of steam, I go and have the shower etc. That's a nice bit of a break, and when I come back my mind seems to be tricked into thinking it's just beginning the morning again. I can get at least a couple more hours' work done before the slump kicks in again.
Now I need another trick that I can use to get re-started after that... and I also need to work out how I can apply a similar trick on days when I have to go out somewhere first thing and therefore can't use the not-showering trick...
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: