Just start.

We’ve all been there.

Faced with a daunting and complicated project (thesis, book, building a house, the list goes on), or a whole bunch of projects, you start suffering from an acute sort of brain deadlock, freezing like an antelope in the headlights of the rapidly approaching deadline pick-up truck, yeehawing redneck behind the steering wheel.

Perhaps even worse than the freezing, is the procrastination. You somehow manage to start moving, except that you’re pouring all your energy into everything but the work that you actually need to do. You manage record numbers of facebook / twitter / google+ posts, and you attain mastery of coin-knuckle-rolling (marketable skill #1), but the day ends with you having made no further progress.

Both of these responses, infuriating as they may be, are completely natural. The mountain of work seems too high to surmount on time, or there seems to be more complexity than we can cognitively contain, so we simply avoid it in one way or the other.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution: Just start.

Well duh, you say, of course you need to start somewhere. However, what I’m proposing is slightly more subtle. It’s more of a humble and honest life philosophy:

When faced with a daunting project of any size, deliberately and explicitly forget about completing the project. Focus only on making a start. It can be a small start, even an half-hour of focus will do the trick. Pick the most meaningful thing to start on. Take a break. Then do exactly the same. Make another start, and take a break. Look back, remind yourself that that’s another half an hour of good work that is now DONE. Keep on doing this, and keep on telling yourself: “I’m just going to make a another start, nothing big.” By the end of the first day, you will have noticed that all this starting has resulted in output, but far less anxiety and debilitation. You should also have noticed that your attitude with regard to your project has changed for the better.

Continue to focus on starting. Practise picking the most meaningful or important thing to start on. Eventually, you’ll finish your project by starting on it enough times, and soon you will be that person: The one who gets their stuff done.

(This post is inspired by Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit, by the Pomodoro technique, and by my own experience keeping on starting until stuff is done.)