Situations similar to this one happen to me all the time... But, as they say, it's not a question of laziness but of priorities. I often procrastinate on things that I think are worthless, and do more interesting personal things first. Perhaps doing the thing you need to do /first/ is impossible. Maybe by purposely selecting a /short/ subject to procrastinate with in advance, you will eventually get to your goal of starting and finishing the needed project? For example, if you make a contract with yourself and say that "once I finish reading X book, then I will immediately start my project, with Y hours maximum in between." Hmm...