Find the first visible move
Ignore the whole project for a moment and ask: what's the smallest thing that would count as started? Opening the document, listing five names, writing one bad sentence. A visible first move beats a perfect plan you never begin.
Cut until it feels almost too easy
If a step still feels heavy, it's still too big. Halve it, then halve it again. 'Write the proposal' becomes 'draft the one-line summary.' The goal is a step so small that not doing it would be silly.
Let momentum do the rest
Starting is the hard part; continuing is much easier. Once the first small step is done, the next one is usually obvious — and you're working instead of dreading. Small steps aren't a compromise on ambition; they're how ambitious things actually get built.
