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Then if "Add 10 items" seems to be sitting around for a while, I change it to "Add 5 items".

The part where I end up finishing the whole thing doesn't always happen, but breaking it down into chunks that I can power my way through even if I'm in the worst mood with the worst working conditions at least lets me accomplish a small thing and get a better sense of the task for the next time I try. Sometimes "Add 5 Items" actually turns into "Add 2 items and realize you only need 7 total items."

Some of my procrastination is "I haven't started the task because I can't completely visualize it, I can't completely visualize it because I haven't started the task."

[aaronbaugher]

That's exactly how it is for me. If I can visualize the whole task from start to finish, it's generally easy to go ahead and knock it out. If there's a part I'm unsure of, I can put it off forever. That's also true if one of the steps is "call so-and-so and ask about such-and-such," if I don't know what the answer is going to be. That uncertainty blocks the whole project in my mind.

Starting to write this comment was easy, because I knew what I was going to say before I started typing; but writing a book seems impossible, because I can't hold the whole thing in my mind at once. Funny thing is, this comment has changed and expanded since I started it, but since I didn't expect that, there was no uncertainty and I didn't hesitate to start it. Now if I could just find a way to fool myself about bigger projects.