Permission to do half.

Most tasks arrive with a hidden contract: begin this, and see it through. It's so automatic you rarely notice it. But it changes the sum your brain does before you start. Instead of asking "can I do the first ten minutes of this?", it asks "can I do the whole thing, right now?" On a low-energy day the answer is no — and the task never begins, even though the first ten minutes would have been fine.

Change the contract, not the task

Before you start, say it out loud or write it down: I'm only doing part of this, and stopping partway is a complete result. You haven't made the task smaller. You've made the promise smaller — and a smaller promise is far easier to begin.

There's a second effect. Part of what makes a big task heavy is everything you can't see yet: the obstacles, the decisions, the chance of getting stuck halfway. Taking "finish it" off the table removes that weight before you've even opened the file.

It only works if you mean it

If the permission is a trick — "I'll say I can stop, but I'll really push through" — it usually fails, because the real expectation hasn't gone anywhere. You have to genuinely accept that one paragraph written, one drawer sorted or five emails answered is a good outcome today.

Often you'll keep going once you've started. That's fine. But it's a bonus, not the point.

What counts as a stopping point

• A fixed time: "ten minutes, then I'm allowed to stop."
• A small visible unit: one section, one shelf, one reply.
• The first awkward step: open the document and write the heading.

You still care about finishing eventually. You've just separated today's start from that finish line.