Recently I read the book - Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.

One of point was to keep a pocket diary where you list all the TODO tasks and keep striking them off as they complete. Helped me in many ways:

1. It is very easy to forget many tasks but by writing them and checking the diary even once in a while, it is possible to be reminded regularly.

2. Its better than mobile TODO apps as I don't need to check mobile phone regularly and don't get distracted.

3. When you strike some things off, you see the progress that you are achieving something. Just deleting everything shows you long list of tasks yet to be done and can be demotivating.

https://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/d...

also can't go wrong with Brian Tracy on such topics

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp...

It's based on Brian Tracy's book "Eat that Frog!" which is a great book on stopping procrastination.

http://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp...

I came here to add that research that Kathy Sierra referred to in her article on willpower and cognitive processing capacity... but you beat me to it :-)

Another interesting article on willpower is by the APA on http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx, refering to actual experiments instead of common opinions. Interesting quotes from that:

> At its essence, willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.

> Self-discipline, the researchers found, was more important than IQ in predicting academic success.

> The benefits of willpower seem to extend well beyond the college years.

There's a nice (short) book on techniques to stop/handle procrastination: Eat That Frog, http://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp.... One of the ideas is that if you start with the hardest task, everything else will be easier after that.