A related trick to avoid procrastination: I have often found myself procrastinating when needing to send an important, but non-urgent, email. Procrastination is often a result of fear. I realized that the procrastination came from a fear that I would phrase the email wrong, or get the tone wrong, and blow my chance at getting a favorable response. To avoid procrastination, I find it helpful to tell myself, "ok, I will just compose the email right now, that is all, and I can send it whenever I want tomorrow, the next day, no hurry." Of course, after composing the email, I almost always get over the fear and just end up sending it.
That is an excellent productivity tip that can be applied to anything. I think what helps, especially for hackers, is to think of activities as a series of simulations before the actual action. There is less pressure when you were on sims, or drafts, or prototypes of the real thing. Such things can fail with far less consequences. So I guess rapid prototyping is one cure for procrastination.
