Training myself, raising a watchdog in my head that periodically asks "is this useful?". Whenever I find myself refreshing some social medium like hn, I think "is this useful?" No, I respond, and I close the tab. I'll just force myself to read a bit about something, or at least alt tab to the editor, or what have you. Sometimes progress is agonizingly slow. But it's progress, and not a full day wasted on the net.

It helps to have a to-do list at hand with small, clearly defined, reachable goals that I can then immediately start work on, such as "read 5 pages of book X" or "finish writing the prettyPrintFizzBuzz function".

It is worth adding "Is this fulfilling?" or something similar as a second question. Going for a walk with friends is hard to justify as "useful" per se...but it is fulfilling and necessary to a good life.

I suppose it depends on your definition of "useful". I'd say going for a walk with friends is useful, because it boosts my mood and strengthens interpersonal relations, allows you to get a second opinion on things, etc.

But going on a gaming streak might be really fullfilling if the game is good and the players are fun. But it's not useful when you actually need to submit an essay due 2 hours ago.

I guess deep in our brains there is some sort of proto-word, from before we had language, that allows us to realize whether what we are doing is "good" or not. I think we often feel guilty when procrastinating because we are willfully going against that proto-good. But my point is to let plenty conscious, mindfull moments surface where you honestly evaluate what you are doing against that good. And to actually kind of discover what that "good" means for you.

I think your advice is helpful because it prevents the thought of, “ok, today is shot. I’ll keep wasting time now but buckle down tomorrow.”

Every moment you thwart procrastination is a win.

This seems to be the opposite advice from what pg is talking about. The very last paragraph closes saying don't worry about the todo just follow your muse.

If you are forcing yourself that much to get it done maybe it's not the right thing to be working on anyway?

Living a life where you are always able to work on "the right thing" is a mostly unattainable privilege. Sometimes, stuff just needs to be done.