I had a similar experience, but I think I've cracked this now. For me the two significant changes were developing a friction-free tracking system, and motivating myself to use it reliably.
For the tracking system, I use Bullet Journalling. You might not need the full power of the bullet journal, but I'd recommend whatever system you do use has the following properties:
* You have a 'backlog' to-do list and a 'daily' to-do list.
* Every day you copy a subset of the backlog into your daily and cross it off the backlog. Tick things off the daily as you do them.
* Daily items should take under an hour, or else you need to break them up into smaller tasks (or alternatively specify "two pomodoros of work on X" as an action)
* Whenever you want to track something that doesn't have to be done today, add it to the backlog.
* Rewrite your daily list every day. This penalises overcommitting. Moving stuff back to the backlog is allowed, as is dropping stuff.
* Rewrite your backlog every month so you can garbage-collect stuff you no longer care about.
* Use a hardbound journal to contain all your lists. Bits of paper get lost or messy, and computer tracking is much harder to stick to for some reason. (For me my tracking system has to be distinct from the place I do work, so can't be digital)
Motivation:
The thing that really worked for me here was operant conditioning. Every time you tick off a task, eat a small candy (like an M&M). Every day when you write out your dailies, eat a candy. For everything you want to train yourself to do, eat a candy when you do it. Big tasks get two or three candies.
It's kind of depressing that this is more effective than willpower, but it builds good associations and trains your brain to associate productivity with reward, promoting that dopamine kick. If candy isn't a motivator for you, substitute some other small reward - ideally something you don't indulge in otherwise - but make sure the reward comes immediately after the good behaviour or you won't get the reinforcement.
Hope that's helpful. Productivity tips are very individual, so I don't know whether this will work for you or not.
For the tracking system, I use Bullet Journalling. You might not need the full power of the bullet journal, but I'd recommend whatever system you do use has the following properties: * You have a 'backlog' to-do list and a 'daily' to-do list. * Every day you copy a subset of the backlog into your daily and cross it off the backlog. Tick things off the daily as you do them. * Daily items should take under an hour, or else you need to break them up into smaller tasks (or alternatively specify "two pomodoros of work on X" as an action) * Whenever you want to track something that doesn't have to be done today, add it to the backlog. * Rewrite your daily list every day. This penalises overcommitting. Moving stuff back to the backlog is allowed, as is dropping stuff. * Rewrite your backlog every month so you can garbage-collect stuff you no longer care about. * Use a hardbound journal to contain all your lists. Bits of paper get lost or messy, and computer tracking is much harder to stick to for some reason. (For me my tracking system has to be distinct from the place I do work, so can't be digital)
Motivation:
The thing that really worked for me here was operant conditioning. Every time you tick off a task, eat a small candy (like an M&M). Every day when you write out your dailies, eat a candy. For everything you want to train yourself to do, eat a candy when you do it. Big tasks get two or three candies.
It's kind of depressing that this is more effective than willpower, but it builds good associations and trains your brain to associate productivity with reward, promoting that dopamine kick. If candy isn't a motivator for you, substitute some other small reward - ideally something you don't indulge in otherwise - but make sure the reward comes immediately after the good behaviour or you won't get the reinforcement.
Hope that's helpful. Productivity tips are very individual, so I don't know whether this will work for you or not.