Try the pomodoro technique (its just a 25-minute timer). I only tried it quite recently, but its working great and quickly becoming a habit. I really appreciate the no-nonsense approach which prevents any yak-shaving[1]. Its simple on the most basic level so its compatibile with more the complex systems like GTD, or task management / team collab apps.

1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving

Interesting you bring this up... I was working on one for awhile that hard a sort of social karma system built in. I wanted to try and reenforce people creating tasks in a game environment rather than just through self-motivation. You were awarded points for completing tasks and able to view accumulated points of friends. I hoped this would allow just a bit more accountability since all your friends can see that you just sat on your ass all day. Same sort of idea of the scale that tweets your weight. There really was no good way I had come up with to make a fair scoring system and to defer cheating. Had I finished it, what it definitely wouldn't have been is anything like this app which makes me feels very detached. I honestly think todos should be fun, otherwise most people won't stick with them.

For the record, this was just one of the smallest projects I could think of to learn a new technology. I think the space sucks but that's largely because everybody does exactly the same thing. It's kind of funny that I couldn't bring myself to work on something that stale even if it was just for me to see.

How about this for motivation?

You assign a due date and a dollar amount punishment when you create a todo list or task. When you fail to complete your tasks on the due date, your account is charged the punishment amount.

"How do you verify that the task has been completed?" you might ask.

You don't. If users "cheat" then they're just losing out on the motivation service, otherwise you get the motivation required to do the task on time.

I believe this is also one of the goals of Lift.do, one of the current in-development projects from Obvious Corp (Evan Williams, Biz Stone).

I have just the thing for you. It's an app called TimeBend: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timebend/id525224894?mt=8

Be sure to read the app description before you download, so you know how to use it correctly. It's simple, but really gets you motivated to get things done on time.

I've not used it, but I have friends who really enjoy [Epic Win](http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/). On the downside, it doesn't sync and is only available on iOS.

We're working on it. Tweet us and I'll send you a link to sign-up for alpha access. http://twitter.com/whatscurrent

Books I'd read: "Wanting to Get Things Done"