[stack_underflow]

Personal anecdote/experience: this was usually the problem I would have too. The overwhelming emotional response/dread/stress would short-circuit my ability to think logically and just divide and conquer my tasks. Ended up being diagnosed with ADHD...

I haven't gotten around to trying medication as I recently lost my job in the US and had to move back to Canada but I have noticed that once I was diagnosed and able to put a label on the many behaviours I would/still do exhibit, I'm better able to take a step back and not fall as deep into the pit of despair and continue to make progress.

edit: I should also add, that in my case, the issue wasn't really that I wasn't capable of breaking down the tasks, rather, actually executing on doing so and progressing on those subtasks. What I realized was that I would end up picturing the time investment of the sum of all those subtasks, and any other child tasks those subtasks would end up forking off and then dread having to answer to someone as to why those things were going to take longer than expected. I've noticed that after losing my job and just working on personal projects, the dread aspect almost entirely dissapeared (now it's just boring tasks that I resist doing). But any deep work relating to my personal projects - I'm okay with new things popping up unexpectedly which end up taking me on a 2-3 day detour of extra work.