What makes a task easy to avoid

Pychyl lists features that make tasks more likely to be put off: boring, frustrating, difficult, unclear, unstructured, lacking personal meaning or without any reward until much later. A thesis chapter scores high on almost all of them. So does a job application, a big assignment with vague instructions or a course you did not choose.

Once you see which features a task has, you can change them. Unclear? Write down the very next step.

Unstructured? Add a deadline and a place. Boring?

Pair it with music or a friend. No meaning? Write one line about why it matters to you.