The steps also need to be concrete, restricting you to a time, location and duration when you’ll get a certain thing done. Dr. Steel recommended thinking about them as if you’re giving “instructions to a teenager who doesn’t really want to do it, so you have to be really specific.”
Take some of the pressure off, too, by telling yourself it’s OK if you do a bad job. You can always come back and improve on it later. Think about the number of mistakes or do-overs you will allow yourself to make, Dr. Hendriksen said. “The answer cannot be zero.”
Finally, take a first step, any first step. “It’s the idea of the task which is often stopping you from doing it,” Dr. Steel said. “It’s so big you don’t know what to do, and since you can start anywhere, you start nowhere.” Once you get going, the work tends to flow more easily and you often realize, “Oh, this isn’t so bad.”
Incentivize yourself
For an overwhelming list of lots of little to-dos, the key is to start strategically. You could do the most important or timely thing first, of course, but another option is to begin with the most enjoyable task. “We’re so focused on the should that we forget that sometimes in there is some want, and following that can be very refreshing,” Dr. Hendriksen said. “If all this has to get done, then I might as well approach the one where I feel the least resistance.”
Starting with the smallest or easiest item can also build confidence and momentum. “Do some part of it that you can do and that you can succeed at, because nothing builds success like success,” said Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University.
Another place to start is with what’s most important to someone else. “When you feel overwhelmed, you need to ask yourself, how does this make other people’s lives easier?” Dr. Ferrari said. “If I do this, will this help someone else? If I don’t do this, am I delaying somebody else from doing what they need?”
Incentivizing yourself can also help break the ice with a long list or that one task you really don’t want to do. If there’s an email you need to send that you keep putting off (and off and off), promise yourself ten guilt-free minutes of internet celebrity gossip afterward. Or pair a pleasant task with an unpleasant one, like doing a crossword while you’re on hold with your health insurance provider. “You use something you like to do to reward something you don’t like to do,” Dr. Ferrari said. “That has been around for 50 years and it’s a very successful technique.”
