I'm trying to eliminate procrastination in my life. In the last three years, I had my ups and downs. I think that recently, I have positive progress. Here is some things/ideas/observations which helped me recently:
1. Core idea is that procrastination is unaware avoidance behaviour.
For example, I have great motivation to learn all algorithms in CLRS book. But at some point I got stuck on some proof, I tried to re-read it but got frustrated by some statement in the proof. On the next morning, I could watch Team Coco in Youtube and eat Pringles instead of attack that proof. Yes, I still love CLRS, but right now, I would like to watch Team Coco. And here is perfect example of my procrastination episode.
Core idea here is to realize that you entered unaware avoidance behaviour. And not just force yourself reading CLRS because next time your avoidance behaviour become even stronger. But you have to be brutally honest with yourself. Then, you can turn off any music, sit down, and enjoy total silence by doing 5-10 minutes of mindfulness meditation. After that, it's much easier to become more comfortable with your frustration on that proof in CLRS and start attacking it again.
2. I noticed strong link between quality of sleep and procrastination. Better your sleep, less chances for procrastination episodes. After many years of wrong sleep schedule (2 am - 11 am), I started follow very strict sleep schedule (9:30 pm - 6 am), after two months of such schedule, I noticed substantial positive progress in my daily productivity.
3. No caffeine, no red-bull, no coca-cola, no concentrated tea anymore. Instead of fixing my sleep schedule and doing physical exercises, I consumed coffee and red-bulls. It gave me fake feeling of alertness. But in fact, I was just dizzy and my focus ability was completely evaporated.
Now, I don't even eat a chocolate. There is nothing better than good healthy sleep and being productive by 8 AM (i.e. 2 hours after I woke up everyday).
4. No music while your reading and coding anymore. I listened music all the time for years. Even when I really tired of music, I couldn't code in total silence.
Mindfulness meditation helped me to see beauty of silence and white noise (especially coming from nature outside of my window like slight sound of trees because of small wind).
I couldn't say I become perfect. But I substantially decreased procrastination in my life.
I hope these advices could help somebody to overcome procrastination.
P.S. By the way, note that I didn't use statement "fight procrastination". If you try to fight it, you make your procrastination stronger next time. You have to be honest with yourself and being aware about your weaknesses!