Putting it off is doing a job

Watch what actually happens. You think about the essay. Within a second or two something unpleasant arrives. It might be boredom, it might be that you do not know where to start, it might be the quiet suggestion that you are going to find out you are not good enough for this.

You pick up your phone. The unpleasant feeling goes. Immediately, completely and reliably.

That is not a failure of discipline. That is a very effective piece of emotional first aid, performed by a person who needed it, and it worked. The trouble is only what it cost, and the cost does not arrive for weeks.