Does anyone else get completely stuck just starting a task?

[marnieswan]

Does anyone else get completely stuck just starting a task? I swear, I can have everything prepped — clean desk, clear to-do list, coffee in hand — but I’ll still sit there staring into space for 40 minutes. It’s like my brain hits a wall right at the beginning. Once I’m in it, I’m fine. But that initial step feels heavier than it should. Any ideas why that happens?
 

[KarlLoder66]

Oh absolutely. I’ve had entire afternoons vanish just trying to convince myself to start a simple 20-minute task. It’s weird — I can think about doing it all day, plan it in my head, even schedule it, but when it’s time to begin, my brain suddenly craves scrolling, snacks, anything else. A big part of it, at least for me, is some weird fear of not doing it “right” from the get-go. Like, if I start and it’s messy or imperfect, that somehow makes it a failure. It’s a perfectionism loop disguised as procrastination. Someone in this thread actually mentioned something really similar:
the liven app review .They talk about the mental resistance that comes from overthinking the outcome before even taking step one. I’m trying to trick my brain lately by saying, “I’m just going to open the doc and write one sentence.” Usually, once I’ve done that, I keep going. Micro-starts help more than I expected.

[LarryCrow1992]

Yeah, starting feels like pushing a boulder at first. It’s kind of comforting knowing it’s not just me. That tip about writing one sentence sounds manageable — I might actually try that tomorrow.