The psychologist Robert Boice has written extensively on the writing practices of academics as writers, as well as on the the phenomenon of procrastination and blocking. The suggestions here reflect his conclusions, although, as I indicated on the home page, each writer has different capacities and temperaments. In general, though, what makes Boice's work particularly helpful (and it dovetails what many academics who write tend to say informally), is that it takes into consideration the reality of academic life with it's competing demands, shifts in time availability, and stresses.
The basic principle here is "Constancy and Moderation". By routinely planning, tracking your progress, and reflecting on your goals and tasks, you're able to produce more work over time, rather than that waiting for long chunks of time to write, which Boice calls "Binge Writing" and associates with high levels of stress, depression, and less productivity than writers who write in smaller chunks of time over time. Boice, in his book Professors as Writers, suggests individual sessions of no more than ninety minutes at a time.
What follows are some suggestions for how to manage your work sessions.
Create entry and exit strategies. To help yourself begin a writing session, give yourself something you agree to do to start and stop. While you might no exactly what to do and can simply begin where you left off in an article or chapter, you can also review your log entry from the previous day, and enter goals or thoughts you have for the current day. You might begin with a session of free writing to separate the time you'll spend writing from the time you'll spend working. Be sure to save a few minutes at the end of the session to do the same.
Divide the session up into smaller sessions. Advocates of "pomodoro time" contend that we work best if we're intention for shorter periods of time within the time we've allowed. If you have decided to work for a three hour period, for example, you might set a timer which divides the longer session into shorter ones. Pomodoro advocates offer twenty five minutes as optimum. You set the timer, set your intention, then work until it goes off twenty five minutes later. At that point, you break-- read your email, circle your desk, look for a new play list. Then you begin again. Some advocate forty five minute sessions with longer breaks. In any case, the overall principle is the same. To keep yourself from getting lost in the time you've given yourself, break it up, build in breaks, and focus your intention for a given period of time.
Build in breaks and rewards. If you're inclined to distraction, build the distractions into the work. Be able to tell yourself that at the end of a period of time, you will do what you would typically do to distract yourself.
Consider the impulse to be distracted an opportunity to check in with and possible change the task. When you find yourself staring off into space, you can check your goals, read over what you've done, restart the process, or simply work on some other feature of the project.
Consider it all "writing" and be sure you have many things to do. If you only have a short period of time, or don't feel ready to compose text, rather than say "I don't have time to write," edit a paragraph. Proof a bibliography. Send emails, track down citations.
Make your research part of the ongoing process of writing. Be sure that your reading and note taking is accompanied by writing. Summarize as well as annotate. Free write in response to a reading. Create annotated bibliography entries for what you've read and write reflectively on the work in the context of your other efforts.
Consider outlining, mapping, and planning part of drafting. While the "shitty first draft" is an essential principle, develop ways to plan chapters, articles or essays so that you've considered the whole in advance. Rather than writing your way through problems, time spend outlining your ideas, mapping them, elaborating on connections, sorting evidence and articulating your connections will allow you a sense of direction in advance of composing, which can make completing early drafts much more efficient and allow you to anticipate problems.