The One Task You Keep Avoiding

(And What Your Brain Is Doing About It)

There's a task on your list right now. You know the one.

It’s been sitting there for days. Maybe weeks. Every time you scroll past it, a little voice goes “yeah, I should really do that,” and then you close the tab and make a cup of tea instead.

I see this with almost every client I work with, and I experience it too, so I wanted to write about it this week.

First: it’s okay. You’re not lazy, undisciplined, or bad at your job. You’re human, and your brain is doing exactly what brains do.

Second: there’s a reason this happens, and once you understand it, getting unstuck gets a bit easier.

WHY YOUR BRAIN PULLS AWAY FROM THE HARD THING

When a task feels big, vague, or high-stakes, your brain doesn’t experience it as “important work.” It experiences it as a low-grade threat. That triggers the same avoidance response you’d use to dodge anything uncomfortable, and avoiding it feels immediately rewarding, even though it costs you later. That’s the trap: your brain is wired to value the relief of right now over the win of later.

The good news: it's a pattern, and patterns can be changed. The goal isn't to force motivation. It's to reduce the friction between you and the first step.

FOUR MOVES THAT ACTUALLY WORK

1. Shrink the task until it’s almost laughably small.

Don’t aim for “finish the proposal.” Aim for “open the doc and write one sentence.” Basically, find the minimum viable version of the task, the smallest possible move that still counts as progress. Big, undefined tasks overload your brain’s working memory, the part that juggles only a few things at once, and that overload is exactly what makes you want to look away. A tiny, specific first step gives your brain something concrete to grab onto instead of a wall to stare at.

2. Name what’s actually making it feel heavy.

Pause and ask: what’s the resistance really about? Fear of getting it wrong? Not knowing where to start? Worry about how it’ll be received? Naming the feeling, even just to yourself, can start quieting the part of the brain driving the discomfort. Sometimes the shift is as simple as moving from "I don't want to do this" to "I'm worried I'll get it wrong." Once the problem is specific, it's usually easier to work with. This is sometimes called “affect labeling.” Research suggests that naming what you’re feeling can take some of the intensity out of it, making it easier to think more clearly about what to do next.

3. Set a timer for five minutes.

Five minutes is short enough that your brain won’t fight you on it. (If you’ve heard of the two-minute rule before, this is a slightly more generous tweak.) The trick is that once you start, you’ve created what’s known as an “unfinished task” pull. Your brain has a natural tendency to want to return to and complete something it’s already begun. That’s why the hardest part is always the start, not the middle. Get it started, and momentum tends to take over (spoiler: you’ll probably keep going past five minutes).

4. Celebrate the second you stop, even for a tiny win.

My clients know this is how you close the circle. Don’t skip this step! Take a moment to acknowledge the win. Our brains learn from what gets noticed, and recognizing progress makes it easier to repeat the behavior. That tiny reward signals to your brain: this thing wasn’t so bad, let’s do it again. Skip the celebration, and you miss the exact moment that makes the next attempt easier.

A FEW MORE BRAIN-INFORMED TIPS

Motivation comes after action, not before it. Waiting to “feel ready” is waiting for a shift that’s actually triggered by starting, not by thinking about starting. Movement creates motivation, not the other way around.
Decide the “when and where” in advance. Give your brain the roadmap it needs. Instead of “I’ll do it today,” try “I’ll write the first sentence at 9am, at my desk, before I open email.” This kind of specific if-this-then-that plan removes a decision point in the moment, and decisions are exactly where avoidance sneaks in. And if you want it to land- write it down.
Lower the friction before you need willpower. Open the document, set out the materials, clear the tab the night before. The fewer small obstacles between you and starting, the less your brain has to talk itself into it.
Co-work: partner with someone. Working alongside another person, even on a video call, even in silence, taps into a basic wiring quirk: we tend to stay more focused, accountable, and on-task when someone else is simply present. If you've ever been more productive in a coffee shop or library than at home, you've probably experienced this effect.
Drop the guilt about the delay. Shame about procrastinating is one of the biggest drivers of more procrastination. It creates a loop where avoiding the task makes you feel worse, which makes the task feel even heavier. Self-compassion is vital.

THE TAKEAWAY

You don’t need to feel ready. You don’t need a clear head, a clean inbox, or the perfect mood. You need one first step and a little kindness toward yourself.

So: pick the thing you’ve been avoiding. Shrink it down. Name what’s making it heavy. Set five minutes on the clock. And when you stop, even if all you did was open a doc, let yourself feel that achievement.

Momentum doesn’t start big. It starts small, and then it builds.

WANT TO KNOW THE SCIENCE BEHIND THIS?

This isn’t just feel-good advice. A few of the ideas above come from specific research, in plain terms:

Naming emotions. Neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman's research found that putting feelings into words can reduce emotional reactivity and help people engage more deliberate thinking. This process is often called affect labeling. Lieberman, M.D., et al. (2007). Putting Feelings Into Words. Psychological Science.
Deciding the when and where. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer's work on implementation intentions found that people are more likely to follow through when they decide in advance exactly when and where they'll act. A specific plan (what I call the road map) removes some of the decision-making that can lead to avoidance. Gollwitzer, P.M. (1999). Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans. American Psychologist.
Shrink the task and the time. The five-minute timer builds on the idea behind James Clear’s “two-minute rule” in Atomic Habits: when you shrink a task to something small and easy to start, you’re much more likely to actually begin. Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits. Avery.
The pull to continue. Research on unfinished tasks, including work by Bluma Zeigarnik and Maria Ovsiankina, suggests that once we've started something, our minds are more likely to stay engaged with it and return to it later. Zeigarnik, B. (1927) and Ovsiankina, M. (1928). Original studies on unfinished and interrupted tasks, Psychologische Forschung.
Self-compassion and procrastination. Psychologist Fuschia Sirois has found that people who respond to delays with self-compassion are less likely to continue procrastinating than those who respond with harsh self-criticism. Sirois, F.M. (2014). Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-Compassion. Self and Identity.

So here’s your invitation: pick that one task, shrink it, and start the timer.

Momentum doesn't start big. It starts small, and then it builds.

With gratitude,

Ana Isabel Sánchez