I suffer the same problem. It is all about conserving mental energy.
The way I see it, each person has 2 different mental power gears. A high power one, that drains you and makes you excited at same time. You need this for planning and thinking big or learning about a new tool.
And a Low power gear that allows you to fix bugs and create a small feature for a known tool. We mostly use this low power gear in our daily life, in meetings, while driving or preparing coffee. The high power gear is used sparingly, when we can't sleep at night because of an idea, when we try to learn something new. it is exciting, but draining and painful at the same time. We want to do it again only after forgetting the pain.
I think proscratination is because we use a high power gear too frequently, we are exhausted mentally, and it is too painful. so we say let's do it later. But what if you have a small task that does not need a lot of thinking to do? something not painful? Well this is easy. I can do it. The trick is, it needs to be easy. you should not waste 1 hour to set up your environment to be able to start. it has to be easy.
So to advance on a project, I need to make sure I always have low energy, easy tasks ready for me when i am not in my mental capacity to use my high power thinking.
It is as if I am 2 persons. a developer and an intern. you need to make sure there is enough easy tasks for the intern to work on. You have to accept this about youreself
Dont waste days planning and creating issues for youreself. This is too draining. you need to write the big plan only and make sure you have few tasks ready. not all of them defined from day 0. do a big planning every 2 to 3 weeks (looks similar to a sprint)
I really like this take! I've been doing software professionally for over thirty years, and really relate to all of the discussions here and the root post. I typically beat myself up about "why is this task taking me so long?! it should be easy by now!", etc. But it's likely because I typically take the "focus on the next hardest problem first, otherwise I'll only have all the hard problems to solve at the end" route, and have to use the high-power gear all the time.
I think proscratination is because we use a high power gear too frequently, we are exhausted mentally, and it is too painful. so we say let's do it later. But what if you have a small task that does not need a lot of thinking to do? something not painful? Well this is easy. I can do it. The trick is, it needs to be easy. you should not waste 1 hour to set up your environment to be able to start. it has to be easy.
So to advance on a project, I need to make sure I always have low energy, easy tasks ready for me when i am not in my mental capacity to use my high power thinking.
It is as if I am 2 persons. a developer and an intern. you need to make sure there is enough easy tasks for the intern to work on. You have to accept this about youreself
Dont waste days planning and creating issues for youreself. This is too draining. you need to write the big plan only and make sure you have few tasks ready. not all of them defined from day 0. do a big planning every 2 to 3 weeks (looks similar to a sprint)
It is all about conserving your mental energy