5 Simple Methods to Help You Start Anything

It’s a vicious cycle: You have something to do and you don’t know where to start. You get overwhelmed, and you feel like you can’t start. This leads to more stress, frustration, and most likely a flavor of guilt and confusion about what the heck is even wrong with you.

For starters — nothing is wrong with you. Our brains use eight primary executive functions to help with things like organization, impulse control, emotional regulation, memory, prioritization, and task initiation. Unfortunately, many people struggle with this thing our brains are “supposed” to do automatically and find it difficult to make decisions, plan, organize, and initiate tasks.

Many people will tussle with executive dysfunction throughout life because of its connection to ADHD, autism, depression, or anxiety, but most people will experience it at some point in their lives because it can come for us under extreme stress, boredom, and fatigue as well.

When Sir Issac Newton's outlined his first two laws of physics, no one knew a damn thing about executive dysfunction. And yet, understanding the physics of inertia can be one of the most helpful ways to understand and overcome executive dysfunction.

Newton helped us understand the idea of inertia, which proposes:

1. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.

2. An object in motion tends to stay in motion.

This means that when you’re stuck, it’s easy to stay stuck, and when you’re moving, it’s easy to continue. The hard part is going from a state of rest to a state of motion — and when you throw executive dysfunction in the mix, it’s even more difficult. Executive dysfunction distorts your perception of tasks and makes them feel bigger and more complex than they usually are, and indecision amplifies the struggle to begin.

Starting is hard — so how do we do it? Since we know that objects in motion stay that way, taking the smallest action can unlock the momentum that carries you through the rest of the task.

Setting a timer for 5 minutes is a great way to kickstart something that feels challenging. Allow yourself to stop when time runs out if you really want to, but usually, you'll have gained enough momentum to overcome the resistance, and it's suddenly easier to keep going.

We know what you’re probably thinking: the first 5 minutes still feel impossible. We get it. Here are some of our favorite ways to trick ourselves into starting:

Next time you feel trapped in the cycle of procrastination, frustration, and embarrassment about how long it’s taking to just start, dial it back. Instead of trying to figure out the whole task in your head before you take an ounce of action, just focus on the first five minutes, try to connect with a little momentum, and watch how things start to unfold from there.