Advice like "find a way to start, and finishing will come later" is at least a substantial step forward. (But still incomplete, as it doesn't solve the problems of distraction, meandering, prioritization, time management, perfectionism)

The problem with procrastination is that it has so many different potential causes and idiosyncrasies that a random advice from the Internet or self-help literature isn't likely to work long-term (once the novelty factor wears off, which for me is usually around a week). The solution really seems to be to keep trying all of the advice, one after another, in combinations and with personal modifications, until something sticks and you start to do better.

For me personally, what seems to have stuck is, in order:

- Doing a "mind dump" whenever I'm overwhelmed by anxiety or confused by what to do. It usually calms me down and clears my head.

- Doing work in pomodoros to reduce the starting anxiety; setting a modest goal of pomodoros to achieve any given work day to consider it a win.

- Most recently, a perverted form of Unschedule. I tried Unschedule and started failing after just 3 days, but I twisted it into the following form: I don't schedule/unschedule anything at all, but just reward myself with 1 point of "guilt-free play" per each 2 work pomodoros completed. I get to spend the points on whatever hobby project or videogame or other fun activity I want, without feeling any guilt or obligation or pressure to do something else. The ratio is somewhat arbitrary (like, e.g., 1 point = 1 flight in Kerbal Space Program), but that doesn't matter. What I realized is that I started to like raking in GFP points, and then spending them in bursts on some projects I previously kept in a "someday/maybe" list. I find myself thinking, "hey, let's work some more, gotta earn GFP points to burn in a couple of days on $project". It seems that I like accumulating them just in anticipation of spending them.

This is what I meant, thank you for stepping in to clarify.

Figuring out "what's wrong" in a case like this isn't always easy. Sometimes you don't actually need to know the underlying reason, and mediation or journaling just works and that's all you ever need to do.

Other times it's not so easy. That's when other interventions like psychotherapy (not just the traditional headshrink-and-couch version) can become relevant and important.

In my personal experience, it flows both ways. It's a positive feedback loop. When I'm productive, I'm happier, even if being productive means meditating or practicing mindfulness (as long as the dread that comes with "wasting time" is not there, all good), and when I'm happier, I can be more productive. The hard part, for me, was getting the loop started, pushing the rock down the mountain, so to say, getting past the first hurdles of procrastination. What helped me was getting professional help and medicine, but I was a pretty bad case.

An analogy I have used to describe this to family before was an internal combustion engine. Normally, once you get an engine started and keep supplying it with fuel, it'll keep generating everything else it needs to keep running. But it still needs a battery and a starter motor to get it running in the first place. Sometimes just getting it running is good enough, and most engines start with one crank, but other times, something is not quite right and it takes a couple of cranks and maybe some starter fluid to get it started. Even once you get it started, maybe the alternator is faulty, so until you get that fixed, you have to keep supplying electricity some other way to keep it running.