Tackling Difficult and Daunting Tasks: 5 Tips to Get Started

Practical, psychology-backed strategies make overwhelming jobs feel smaller, lighter, and possible to achieve.

The hesitation before beginning a difficult task is often the most difficult moment to overcome. sanjeri/Getty Images

A flooded bathroom needs to be mopped up. An unpleasant phone call hangs heavily over your head like an anvil on a string. A massive work project on your desk stares back at you with defiant eyes. Dreaded tasks can turn your knees to jelly, leaving you in a puddle of paralysis. Sometimes, the mere thought of what it will entail makes it almost impossible to start.

That’s when it’s necessary to get crafty and outsmart the forces that hold you in thrall. Certain strategies make it easier to tackle a daunting task. Here are some of the most effective.

1. Make a Plan

Success stems from a plan. Large goals can’t be achieved without the achiever having some idea of how to break them down into smaller, manageable pieces. Running a marathon is a daunting task. Trying to achieve it without a plan of action is like setting out on a long journey with no map, just hoping you’ll eventually stumble upon your destination. No wonder you feel overwhelmed.

Successful marathon runners establish intermediate goals and figure out how to get there: Eat a healthy diet, learn proper running form, run a mile, run a 5k, and so on and so forth. Individually, each task is quite doable. Then the runner combines these individual tasks, and progress explodes forward toward the final goal.

When a complex task is broken down into simple steps, it becomes less daunting, and you know where to start. Which brings us to the next tip.

Breaking a complex goal into smaller steps makes it easier to begin and sustain progress. Jelena990/Shutterstock

2. Lower the Bar With the ‘2-Minute Rule’

In his book “Atomic Habits” and on his blog, James Clear explains how to build new habits by scaling them down to manageable bites. The same idea applies to any activity you want to begin, such as a single daunting task. Clear calls it the Two-Minute Rule: “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” He explains that almost any new habit can be reduced to a miniature, two-minute version. For instance, “study for class” becomes “open my notebook.” “Run three miles” becomes “tie my running shoes.” Someone can build these new habits by initially focusing on consistently performing the two-minute version before scaling up to the full habit.

A similar logic can be applied to single daunting tasks: break it down into a manageable piece; don’t put pressure on yourself to complete the whole thing at once. The secret is to get some kind of momentum going, and sometimes that requires simplifying the task into a form that’s no longer daunting.

Need to clean the whole house? Just spend two minutes putting a few things away. Anyone can do that. No sweat.

Oftentimes, once you get going, you’ll find you can do more than you initially thought. Before you know it, the task’s half done.

Something called the Zeigarnik effect may also help out here. It’s a phenomenon in which we remember and think about unfinished tasks, which helps prompt us to finish them. Beginning the task, however simply, will start to build psychological impetus to finish it.

3. Surprise Yourself

Time is the enemy. By that, I mean the more time you give yourself before launching into the difficult task, the more space you provide for obstacles to emerge. The real war plays out in the mind. The longer you delay, the easier it is for doubts, anxieties, and distractions to litter your thoughts, and these are what hold you back.

I often fool myself that I need to “settle in” at the start of the workday before beginning my projects. I imagine I need to check my email, maybe scan a few headlines, brew some tea, and shuffle some papers. But all this gives the enemy—procrastination—more opportunities to strike. Winning a war means maintaining the element of surprise—in this case, surprising yourself. You should be at work on the hard task before you even realize it.

Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project,” wrote for Psychology Today: “The night before, vow to yourself to do the dreaded task. And the next day, at the first possible moment—as soon as you walk into work, or when the office opens, or whenever—just do it. Don’t allow yourself to reflect or procrastinate.”

4. Maintain Momentum Through Small Daily Efforts

As Jeff Olson explains in “The Slight Edge,” breathtaking success ultimately derives from seemingly insignificant daily disciplines that accumulate exponentially over time. Write 200 words per day, and you’ll have a book at the end of the year. Save $20 per day, and that amounts to $7,300 in savings for the year.

Consistency is key. Great things happen when we show up each day, even if it’s only for 10 or 20 minutes. Some days, the work flows effortlessly as a mountain stream. Other days, it feels like a muddy bog. But that doesn’t matter. Whether a lot or a little happens in the allotted time, you make progress and maintain momentum.

Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest novelists of all time, who wrote thousands of pages over the course of his career, said, “I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

Beginning hard work immediately can help preserve focus for what matters most. MilanMarkovic/Getty Images

5. Rework Your Mental Framework

Psychologist Jennice Vilhauer advises anyone struggling with motivation to “change your story” about the difficult task. “If you keep telling yourself what a boring horrible task it is, that will make it seem even more so in your head,” she said in a Psychology Today article.

Reframing the task may alleviate the negative feelings about it. Vilhauer recommended: “Remind yourself why you are doing it and how good it will feel once it is done. Think about the benefits of completing the task, such as reduced stress, a clean house, or positive feedback from your boss.”

The benefits that result from completing the task could be self-awarded (like going out to eat or buying something from your wish list), or they might be inherently tied to the task (like rising through the ranks at work, alleviating a difficult situation with a family member, earning needed income, or making life easier for someone else).

Sometimes, stepping back to take in the panoramic view of the whole—and your reasons for engaging in the activity—can reduce the friction involved in putting your hand to the plow each day.

Unpleasant tasks punctuate our lives. There’s no way around it. Yet, often, these tasks turn out to be some of the most meaningful we perform. All we have to do is get started.