The Flylady program of housekeeping helps me in a lot of areas, even though I signed up to get her emails back when I had a lot of small children and no real housekeeping skills. But lots of her catchphrases help me, way beyond housework.
"You can do anything for 15 minutes." "You aren't behind; just jump in where you are"
Those are the big ones for me.
I got some discipline from the military but in a lot of ways that mindset is hard to sustain if you're not immersed in the structure that lifestyle entails. It did make me aware that I can do a lot of surprising shit if I'm sufficiently determined and willing to get dirty.
Some of it came from grad school, where I decided I'd make sure I did SOMETHING to advance my academic goals every single day. I was kind of amazed by how much better the quality of my work and how much lower my stress levels were compared to when I was an undergrad and basically put things off til "inspiration" struck. I realized that you can't force inspiration... but you can force yourself to take concrete steps that set the stage for inspiration to arrive.
OK, crabbyvista, so you don't know what to write yet. Did you read the assigned chapters? You can at least do that. Did you start your bibliography? That doesn't require any deep ideas. How about a short provisional outline? Well, that looks... not-terrible... heck, the first draft basically writes itself now...
Suddenly you're really into it and your paper is somehow done 3 days before it's due.