Only one approach to procrastination has worked for me: lack of rational thought. The only conscious deliberation I allow is the decision of whether or not I should do something, after that i just _do_. No further thought required. If I catch myself thinking about it, I stop myself and just act, the decision was already made. Sometimes, rational thought is overused.
Yeah I can relate to this, I think having two mindsets is effective.
The 'architect' that's deciding long-term goals and plans to follow.
The 'implementer' that follows the guide from the architect. The implementer is not allowed to vary the plan in any way and if the implementer fails then the architect has to reevaluate the strategy.
This way you're able to consider long-term goals with feedback loops that are not immediate. The return from eating cake right now vs. being fit in 6 months for example. The reward of the cake is too extreme and too immediate to be able to easily make rational short term decisions on that kind of thing (you end up rationalizing why this exception is okay, it's one time, etc.)
I find a lot of things fall into this kind of category.
In Robert Anton Wilson's book Prometheus Rising (1983) he describes a mental model of the mind as "Thinker & Prover" in Chapter One. This is a duality where one part of the mind manifests thoughts and the other one rationalizes them into a consciously comprehensible concept.
Under this model, what you describe seems to be a way to turn this duality against itself, hijacking the proving step by shutting down the thought, putting idea into action, and seeing the proof when you're done. If instead you over-rationalize the initial idea, and you're anything like me, you will add unnecessary complexity until you've turned yourself around so many times that right looks wrong.
