"Two tricks that always help me are first to break down my plan into many small tasks that can be accomplished in short periods of time. For example if I have to give a big talk on a subject that I not as familiar with, then I find a list of papers that I want to read, and I read one paper a day. This helps me make the project tangible and less scary. Instead of ‘God, I have to give a huge talk!’, I have transformed the problem into ‘I need to read these 10 papers.’. In this way as well, I can easily measure my progress and the obstacle feels less daunting."