My suggestion is a difficult one: go on a silent retreat. No internet, cell phone, electronics. At least 3 days is my recommendation. 5 days is ideal. I don't k

My suggestion is a difficult one: go on a silent retreat. No internet, cell phone, electronics. At least 3 days is my recommendation. 5 days is ideal. I don't know about other religions, but any Trappist or Benedictine monastery will let you into their guest house-- and feed you-- for free regardless of your religious affiliations. (You generally have to book ahead of time, and they do appreciate donations at the end of your stay.) While there, spend time in meditation. Maybe start with 5 minutes at a time, and try to increase it over the course of the retreat. Go on long walks. Read some books and do some journaling, but limit your reading/journaling time. I think 3 days is the bare minimum, because I find that it takes me 2 days to get my head out of my day-to-day life. The downside (?) is that when you return to the real world, you will realize just how noisy and stressful it is. Just turning my cell phone back on activated a stress response in me the last time i retreated. Once you return to the real world, continue to spend time in daily solitude (alone, silent, and still). I've found this practice makes a big difference in my level of self control. Other things that have helped me: creating a daily task list for myself, each task being short and clear and relatively easy to do. Break big tasks down into smaller, bite-sized ones. Try to do the most important ones first. If there are particularly egregious tasks, assign a reward to each and do them early. (The reward might be, "If I finish this task, I'll go out for a walk / get a nice porter at the pub / read Hacker News.")