It’s similar to how therapists address procrastination. You split your task into 5-7 substeps, find two that suck most and just do them first. Often turns out that the whole deal was blocked by something that didn’t even suck that much.
5-7 things in a list might be daunting. I've found that setting the bar much lower is a great help. I worked in an office that responded to world events. So the inbox just grew. My working response was to, before setting out for work, write down the one thing that I wanted to accomplish that day and do it, regardless. One thing. Just one thing. It was amazingly effective for me.
