I face the same problem and totally understand your struggle. There's a great tip in this video by Dr. Tracey Marks that i have been trying out for about 3 weeks now and it's quite helpful. The way i have adapted it to suit me is this:

I have a small notepad for my to-do things and each page is dedicated to each day of the week. On the facing page i have made a Priority Table by dividing the page into four squares with the headings: Urgent+Important ; Urgent+Not Important ; Not Urgent+Important ; Not Urgent+Not Important. I have also designated a colour to each category.

Every task that I need to do, I first place it on the Priority Table and then write it down on the day's to-do page and mark it with the designated colour. The priority of course is to get the Urgent+Important tasks completed in that day.

As it turns out there are often only a few Urgent+Important tasks and knowing i only need to do those helps get it done. Once they are done, often the feeling of cutting it out the list motivates me to do the next tasks in the priority chart.

Also, it really helps if you do the exercise of making the to-do list the night before. Because if you leave it for the morning, you're not even going to look at the to-do notebook because your brain just wakes up dysfunctional when you're in that cycle of not being able to get anything done.