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Zvi comments on The First Step is to Admit That You Have a Problem - Less Wrong
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This is an interesting idea, though I'm not sure if it's terribly useful.. Here's a summary that may make more sense for some readers. The examples are entertaining, but they may obfuscate the central point a little.
-A "task" is where you have some goal, D, and some series of operations, A, B, and C that will result in the attainment of this goal. All you have to do is actually carry out those operations and you should attain your goal.
-A "problem" is where you have goal D, but you do not know any series of operations that you could potentially perform to attain that goal. You need some additional information so that you can understand what procedures will yield D as a result. Once you have this information, you no longer have a problem; you have a task, and you merely need to perform the series of operations and you'll have D.
I think this gets the central point across effectively.
That raises the question of the common case where you do have a set of operations [A,B,C] that will result in attainment of the goal but where there is a potentially better solution out there potentially worth trying to find.
Thus the person in question has a choice. She can treat this as a task, or she can treat this as a problem. Thus wouldn't we define a "task" as where you have some goal D and selected a potential set of actions that will (may?) result in attainment of this goal. However a problem remains a problem even if such a task exists until such time as that task is selected to be used; merely having a task available does not mean you no longer have a problem.