Just Do the Dishes

 A friend was feeling swamped at work, not an unusual situation with what we do.  One day, she was feeling particularly overwhelmed and asked, "What do you do when there's so much to do that you don't have any idea where to even start?"

I said, "Wash the dishes."

She looked at me like I was nuts, as there are no dishes to wash at work.  We do a lot of office work.  There are piles of papers and lots of computer stuff to do, along with handling the interruptions that are often the essential nature of our job.  What does dishes have to do with anything??

I tried to explain how things are at home.  When there's so much to do that you don't know where to start, "just wash the dishes" is a good first step.
a) You know it needs to be done, and sooner is better than later.
b) It's quick.  Probably ten minutes or less.
c) It doesn't take any thinking or decision-making.  It's easy on the brain.
d) It provides obvious results in a short amount of time: the counter is cleared off.
e) It provides space to do another task.  Can't make supper if there's no counter space, so washing the dishes and thus clearing the counter makes it possible to tackle another job.
f) It gets you over the hurdle of NotDoing, from which you can (perhaps) build on the momentum and do the NextThing.

But when you think about this, doesn't the concept apply to many situations?  

If you have so much to do that you don't have a clue where to start, pick a quick little job that takes no decision-making and which will provide obvious improvement with little effort.  Then maybe you'll be able to attack a slightly bigger job, and keep progressing from there.