The only trick that really stuck to me is to write down on a piece of paper where I'm at during a context switch. That really helps to pick it up again faster afterwards.
Work is getting stupid now. All the gains go to someone else for most people.
Everyone says they "tried X for a few weeks but let it lapse". Is this because ultimately we cannot work full throttle without big incentives?
Yes we all have fear as a driver but I find this wears off quick.
Oh, maybe I do that too? I'm not sure if I blame this on my memory, but sometimes to do X I need to do Y and then Z (specially when starting a project), and then I forget why I was doing Z in the first place. I'm using Trello for doing things at work, and after a "Doing" column, I put a "Doing now" that usually has only one task to simulate the writing in a piece of paper. Sometimes it turns out into a "stack" of tasks with the switchs. It's usually really short term tasks. Not sure if you are talking about something like that.
Before that I used to write in my notebook what my task was, so I don't lose focus.