Having trouble getting starting with tasks is a common struggle in grad school. One way you can push through this obstacle is to reconceptualize what it actually means to start working.
For example, when I was deep in the days and weeks of writing my dissertation, keeping a relatively structured starting routine helped me go to campus and get started writing.
My starting routine was to get ready at home, have breakfast and one tea, prepare a tea to go, pack up my bag, and head to campus between 9:00 and 9:30 am. After a short bus ride (or bike ride), I would walk to the hidden computer lab where I would usually get my choice of computers.
I would login to the computer, open a few documents related to my dissertation - the draft, notes, spreadsheets, etc. - open a browser and then open my dissertation journal. I would usually be wearing headphones, but I'd made sure those were on and that my playlists were queued on my phone.
The first thing I would do would be to free write for about 10 minutes in my dissertation journal about whatever was on my mind - frustrations, successes, other things I needed to do that day, difficulties with writing, etc.
After that ten minutes, I would set a Pomodoro timer on the browser for 10 minutes and spend that time just browsing, reading news, etc. Sometimes I would continue using the Pomodoro and sometimes not.
When that 10 minutes went off, I would switch to classical music with no lyrics (or even dramatic movie scores, such as the score for Interstellar), take a look at my planning spreadsheet that outlined what I had to work on and get going.
So, overall, my starting time when I was writing my dissertation would be around 1 hour in length before I actually started writing.
Of course, I didn't follow this structure every day, but most days I did and this regularity helped me establish what I had to do and when I was going to be doing it.
These days, being self-employed and working from home, the time it takes me to start tasks depends on the day and what I have to do, but ranges from 15 minutes to 1 hour.
If you're finding that you're having difficulty getting started on tasks, take a moment to write down all the things you do before you sit down at your computer to start working.
Then, figure out which things are helpful and that you want to do every day so you can help create your starting routine.
Creating this ritual is one thing you can do to increase your motivation, especially during the solo dissertation writing days.
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