Comment by kstrauser
That matches my experience. “Write the report” will sit in my inbox forever. “Add 10 items to the outline for the report” will usually break the inertia and end up with me finishing the whole thing.
That matches my experience. “Write the report” will sit in my inbox forever. “Add 10 items to the outline for the report” will usually break the inertia and end up with me finishing the whole thing.
That's exactly how it is for me. If I can visualize the whole task from start to finish, it's generally easy to go ahead and knock it out. If there's a part I'm unsure of, I can put it off forever. That's also true if one of the steps is "call so-and-so and ask about such-and-such," if I don't know what the answer is going to be. That uncertainty blocks the whole project in my mind.
Starting to write this comment was easy, because I knew what I was going to say before I started typing; but writing a book seems impossible, because I can't hold the whole thing in my mind at once. Funny thing is, this comment has changed and expanded since I started it, but since I didn't expect that, there was no uncertainty and I didn't hesitate to start it. Now if I could just find a way to fool myself about bigger projects.
You should try harder, I can easily keep “Add 10 items to the outline for the report” or even "Add 1 item" tasks in my inbox forever.
Then if "Add 10 items" seems to be sitting around for a while, I change it to "Add 5 items".
The part where I end up finishing the whole thing doesn't always happen, but breaking it down into chunks that I can power my way through even if I'm in the worst mood with the worst working conditions at least lets me accomplish a small thing and get a better sense of the task for the next time I try. Sometimes "Add 5 Items" actually turns into "Add 2 items and realize you only need 7 total items."
Some of my procrastination is "I haven't started the task because I can't completely visualize it, I can't completely visualize it because I haven't started the task."