For me, the best way to replenish willpower is a long solitary walk. 2 hours, 5 kilometers or longer, preferably in nature or a non-crowded park, with minimized exposure to cars, dogs, people, speech, loud sounds, and any other attention-taxing things. I've been going on these walks for over 20 years, so the technique is time-tested.
Also: mini-vacations. Basically the same as above, but they should provide at least a week-long period of uninterruptible time ahead. This works wonders for me.
I've read (I can't remember where) that completing difficult tasks gives a boost to willpower, but then how do you convince yourself to start that difficult task? And what difficult task do you use?
In my case, the concepts of Trivial Inconvenience and Trivial Impetus were very helpful. I soften difficult tasks up by removing trivial inconveniences standing between me and the task, and facilitate my future work on them by creating trivial impetuses. Breaking a big monolithic task into smaller chunks also works well.
After a bit of brief research, I still have no idea how willpower depletion actually works, or if I'm mistaking depletion for distraction, etc., etc. I get the impression that there isn't much a consensus in the field on this subject.
What I'd like to know is this: what do you actually do to replenish willpower?
In other words, after working for several days in a row and being tired and not wanting to work on project x that has a large delay and little expectation (from the Procrastination Equation), how do you then work on project x? Do you eat something sugary, recite a mantra, meditate, sleep?
I've read (I can't remember where) that completing difficult tasks gives a boost to willpower, but then how do you convince yourself to start that difficult task? And what difficult task do you use?
Thanks.