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Some tasks are avoided because nobody has said what they want. Not knowing what good looks like is its own reason to keep walking past something.
An unclear job asks you to do two things at once: work out what it is, then do it. On top of that sits the worry of getting it wrong in a way you could not have predicted. From outside it looks like you cannot be bothered. From inside it is fog. If a task has been sitting there for weeks, check whether the problem is the work or the brief.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God has set a due measure for everything (Quran 65:3). Things have their proper size, and it is fair to want to know the size of what is being asked of you.
وَيَرۡزُقۡهُ مِنۡ حَيۡثُ لَا يَحۡتَسِبُۚ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسۡبُهُۥٓۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بَٰلِغُ أَمۡرِهِۦۚ قَدۡ جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيۡءࣲ قَدۡرࣰ ا
and will provide for them from an unexpected source; God will be enough for those who put their trust in Him. God achieves His purpose; God has set a due measure for everything
Qur’an 65:3read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis drawing on 691 correlations found that how unpleasant a task feels and how little you believe you can do it are among the strongest predictors of putting it off. An unclear job scores badly on both. The analysis identified predictors rather than testing whether clearing up the ambiguity fixes it.
Steel P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
You cannot make a start on something whose shape nobody has described.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Nobody needs help starting the things they enjoy. The skill worth building is starting the dull ones, and it is a narrower skill than it looks.
Two kinds of pressure get things done: the kind that comes from outside you, like deadlines and someone waiting, and the kind you generate yourself. Both are legitimate.
Pick a system that is good enough, spend one evening on it at most, and then use it for a month without changing anything.