On the path to greatness, there will be 100 overcomings.
I will chronicle my attempts to overcome procrastination. My technique is to start small, really small.
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The cat-box got out of control. So . .. I had a lot of crap to deal with. (Ha ha. I kill me.)
Anyway, it still holds true that once started, a task is 95% finished, but starting here was more problematic than usual. . . It had become a gross problem, okay? Okay!?!
So I was procrastinating even the tiniest step of starting. So . . . I got some music, and started playing it. Common sense, sure, but the key is to make it a systematic go-to step every time.
I am reminded of this "Big Think" video on procrastination.
I want to elaborate some here. You shouldn't reward yourself after you do something. If you do that, you risk destroying any motivation to do it at all. This has been demonstrated in psychological literature, which is summarized in Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards. Instead, use something you enjoy to help you get started. That way you can associate the beginning of the task with something you enjoy. I call this "pre-warding" myself.
The difference is subtle, but important. So instead of rewarding yourself, I'd say the mind hack is to associate good beginnings with things you like already. You can probably make it even better by only giving yourself that thing you like (such as a certain song) when you are trying to use it as a momentum builder. However, that might require more self-discipline and thus fail. Experiment.
Update: I now pretty much only listen to music as a "momentum builder," or maybe "starter fluid,." if you will. But that fits into a life that alternates between weeks of putting a lot of hours and now giving myself quite a bit of quiet reflection time, and long-hand writing as my main hobby. I'm not judging if this mix doesn't work for others. Experiment.
