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Ask what you expect to happen when you open it. There is usually something specific in there: that it will be wrong, that it will swallow the whole night, that someone will see how far behind you have got. Opening the file for two minutes without doing anything to it tests the fear instead of arguing with it, and the fear tends to shrink a little each time nothing terrible happens.
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer, though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble (Quran 2:45). The difficulty is admitted in the same breath as the instruction, so finding this hard is not a sign you are doing it wrong.
البقرة
وَٱسۡتَعِينُواْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ وَٱلصَّلَوٰةِۚ وَإِنَّهَا لَكَبِيرَةٌ إِلَّا عَلَى ٱلۡخَٰشِعِينَ
Seek help with steadfastness and prayer- though this is hard indeed for anyone but the humble
Qur’an 2:45read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of perfectionism separated high standards from anxious concern about making mistakes, and found it is the anxious concern that tracks with psychological difficulty, not the standards themselves. That supports treating the worry underneath a delay as the live part. It studied perfectionism rather than procrastination directly, so applying it to your own delaying is an inference.
Limburg K, Watson HJ, Hagger MS, Egan SJ. (2017). The Relationship Between Perfectionism and Psychopathology: A Meta-Analysis.. Journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Avoiding something brings quick relief, which teaches you to avoid it again.
If the avoidance has spread across post, phone calls and appointments generally, treat it as anxiety worth getting help with rather than a habit to out-organise.
Everybody finds unrewarding tasks harder to start. If yours seem to cost several times what other people pay, that is a real difference in how your brain handles reward, not a flaw in your character.
The real prize for starting early is that you are allowed to stop. At the last minute you have to keep going until it is finished, however late that turns out to be.
When you catch yourself saying you are not motivated, try swapping the word out. Ask instead which bit has stalled: getting started, knowing what comes first, staying with it, or holding your attention on it at all.