I find that this pattern works really well for me, even if it's not at the start of my day. When I get home from work, I try to "produce" something, like writin

I find that this pattern works really well for me, even if it's not at the start of my day. When I get home from work, I try to "produce" something, like writing a blog post, exercising, or spending an hour coding a side-project. As a result, I don't have the mental guilt about watching a movie, reading HN, or playing xbox later in the evening. I find if I do things in the reverse order (come home from work, plop down and start checking Twitter/reddit) then it quickly becomes dinner time and my brain has "shut down" for the day. It's easy to lull myself into thinking "Well Matt, today is almost over so no sense in starting something, just work on $FOO tomorrow". Another trick that I've found that is highly effective for me is to "link" a producing behavior to a consuming one. I'm a bit of a TV addict so I made a deal with myself - I can watch as much TV as I want, as long as I'm doing it on the treadmill. Maybe you really enjoy listening to podcasts or sports talk radio, allow yourself to consume but only while you are doing chores or running errands. Some would argue that this is not a good way to build habits (in the sense that you are doing a behavior for the wrong motivations - in my case I am exercising in order to watch TV not to become healthier) but its been working for me so far.