Often a good way to look at it. The most reliable technique for overcoming this kind of procrastination that I’ve yet discovered is, if I have several tasks (or a big one that can be broken down into several smaller ones), order them not by importance or even urgency but in increasing order of difficulty. Then expend a small amount of (scarce and valuable) willpower on doing the easiest task, use the morale boost from its completion as activation energy for the next one, and so on.
Caveat: beware this doesn’t end up an excuse for cat-hoovering—tasks like cleaning up unused files on your hard disk, that feel like work but are in fact useless and shouldn’t be on the to-do list at all.
Often a good way to look at it. The most reliable technique for overcoming this kind of procrastination that I’ve yet discovered is, if I have several tasks (or a big one that can be broken down into several smaller ones), order them not by importance or even urgency but in increasing order of difficulty. Then expend a small amount of (scarce and valuable) willpower on doing the easiest task, use the morale boost from its completion as activation energy for the next one, and so on.
Caveat: beware this doesn’t end up an excuse for cat-hoovering—tasks like cleaning up unused files on your hard disk, that feel like work but are in fact useless and shouldn’t be on the to-do list at all.