Try telling people about them; it will motivate you. Also, when you write down things to do, try to write down the smallest possible parts of the item as a task

Try telling people about them; it will motivate you. Also, when you write down things to do, try to write down the smallest possible parts of the item as a task and don't include things like "think about," "decide," etc. i.e.: bad: 1. create concept for new message queuing 2. implemeting queuing better: 1. design message header 2. write message header parser 3. write a message pump 4. etc