Kindling

A #heuristic to start working on a Clubber Lang problem. Think of training for Apollo Creed like starting a fire with dry fatwood, compared to training for Clubber Lang as starting a fire with wet wood. You either need to shave chunks of wood in to smaller pieces (start breaking down one medium or large sized problem) or gather small dry twigs (complete small and easy tasks).

A little different than divide and conquer or separation of concerns, in that this is just about "starting the fire" or put another way, getting enough momentum to get over the initial feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed.

Recongize the desire to distract yourself, "symbiotic" distractions (music, food, drinks, change of environment) may be okay, but remember "take breaks but don't let breaks take you." Extirpate, mitigate or if all else fails adapt to non-symbiotic (parasitic) distractions.