[laurentl]

I don't know if I'm a "real" procrastinator but I am definitely a "P" on the MBTI scale. This means I usually do things at the last minute. I can rarely manage to get interested in a task (especially a boring one) until just before the deadline. Also, I can't seem to do any productive work if I don't have a huge workload. (As an example, after putting off stuff all week long I'm now hauling ass to get everything done by the WE - despite posting on HN at the same time - and I'm fairly confident I'll get most of it done)

The flip side for me is that I'm very driven by deadlines: I hate to be late (or more specifically, too late). So, to overcome my ingrained habits, I split up tasks and set intermediate deadlines for each subtask, not too far in the future. If I have a real, hard deadline I'll impose myself an arbitrary deadline the day before; this way I may slip my own deadline by a few hours, but I'll definitely make the real deadline. I may also sit on tasks for a few days (or weeks), until the accumulated feeling of urgency from all those chores to be done is enough to get me moving.

It's more coping than overcoming, but I find it useful in practice, at least for my natural inclination. Taking an MBTI course really helped as well, it helped me understand why I behaved in certain ways and identify my coping mechanisms for what they are - I've behaved this way for a long time, but I always felt kind of guilty for having to use tactics to get anything done.