A similar phenomenon can occur in programming. I've learned not to worry too much about procrastination in writing code, because when I think I should be coding and yet somehow can't motivate myself to get started, nine times out of ten I realize next day that my understanding of the problem was inadequate, and any code I had forced myself to write would have had to be thrown away and redone.

When I'm procrastinating about chores, by contrast, it is indeed a matter of flinching away from the small pain of getting started, and once I do manage to get moving, it's less painful to keep moving than it was to procrastinate.