Make a deal with yourself.  Good for overcoming procrastination and getting things done.  You can make the deal small or large.  You simply tell yourself something like:  When I’m done with this chapter/these reports I can take a walk in the park and enjoy an ice cream.

Act like it.  If you don’t feel motivated or enthusiastic then act like it.  The strange thing is that within a few minutes you actually start to feel motivated or enthusiastic for real.

Move the goalposts. Set a large and specific goal.  This will motivate you much more than small goals.  A big goal has a big effect and can create a lot of motivation.

Do something small and create a flow.  Just clean your desk.  Or pay your bills. Or wash the dishes. You just need to get started.  When you have finished that small task you’ll feel more alert and ready to do the next thing.  You just to get started to get motivated.  So if you really don’t feel like doing anything, start with something small and work your way out up.

Do the toughest task first.  This will ease a lot of your day-to-day worries and boost your self-confidence for the rest of the day.  Read more about doing the hardest task bright and early right here.

Start slow.  Instead of jumping into something at full speed start slow.  When you do that your mind will not visualize the task as something hard that you have to do fast, fast, fast.  If your mind sees such things guess what often happens?  Yep, you don’t get started.  Actually getting started, even if it’s at a slow pace, is a whole lot better than not getting started at all.

Compare yourself with yourself.  Not with others.  Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation.  There are always people ahead of you.  Most likely quite a bit of people.  And a few of them are miles ahead.  So focus on you.  On your results.  And how you can and have improved them.

Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on.  But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come.  Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.