And you know how I love the lists...Matthew's suggestions are all very handy, and (of course) I've added my own comments (in italics):

1. Switch off email. I don’t start Outlook (or if I do, I disable all the notifications that tell me I have new mail). This has been one of the biggest godsends for my productivity...the simple act of switching off my email client for a period of time eliminates a huge distraction that inevitably multiplies with every message I read.

2. Isolate myself. I use Bose noise-cancelling headphones but don’t plug them into anything. The silence really is golden. While I don't go the headphone route, I turn off iTunes, and sometimes (oh yes, my guilty secret), I put my business line directly to voice mail.

3. Greed and guilt. I remind myself how much money I’m getting paid for a particular assignment and how ashamed I will be if I miss the deadline. This actually works sometimes. I wish this worked more for me than it actually does.

4. Stop with the blog already. When I’m pressed for time, distractions like blogging and hoovering become very compelling. Knowing this makes it easier to resist. In my case, a great deal of my own writing is blogging. Now staying away from reading other blogs, especially something like BoingBoing or one of my guilty pleasure gossip blogs, is another story.

5. Get up early. 6am is the most productive time of day for writing. No distractions. It also feels more virtuous than staying up late with work. Number #25 on the list of things that will never happen. Right after #24, the dog absolutely will not have a bite of my sandwich. Actually, getting up naturally, and for me that is usually 7:30am, has been one of the best things in my life for several years now.

6. Little treats. I bribe myself: ‘Matthew, if you write another 500 words, you can have a cup of tea and a biscuit.’ Of course that works...especially when I am an aspiring professional Delicious Candy Taster. Hee hee.

7. Chunking. Setting a timer or alarm clock for 15, 20, 30, 50 minutes and doing nothing but writing until it goes off and then taking a break seems like a good way to make progress. A great idea I've been considering for a long time...

8. Go full screen. Switching Word into full screen mode (from the view menu) eliminates all distractions but the piece I’m working on. Another great idea I'll have to try.

9. Shitty first draft. Splitting the work into distinct writing and editing phases breaks the job down nicely and it takes off some of the pressure to ‘get it right first time’. With all due credit to Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, this does take a lot of pressure off. And if you are writing, and have never read that wonderful book, shame on you.

10. Change location. Sometimes, if I’m really struggling to get started, taking a laptop or my notebook to a cafe and scribbling out something there - a fresh new location - is a good way to jolt-start an assignment. Something I should do more as well...but the sun, it hurts my eyes!