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OrphanWilde comments on Is my brain a utility minimizer? Or, the mechanics of labeling things as "work" vs. "fun" - Less Wrong Discussion
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I experience the same phenomenon in spite of not experiencing anxiety. (That's not 100% true, I did experience completely disassociated anxiety once.)
The most interesting case is that I spent about five months writing a new tabletop game after the beta of the current version of D&D made me annoyed. (It was when they started phasing feats out, eliminating yet another chunk of character customization.)
Five months and a novel's worth of writing in, I started planning ahead. As soon as I set goals for myself, I stopped enjoying working on it. I pushed through writing 250 spells over two months, and progress has been sporadic since then.
I don't think anxiety is the issue. I think it's something related to goal-oriented behaviors; the short view and long view fighting each other.
ETA: Thinking about it, I experience exactly the same thing WRT my daily work. If I receive an e-mail with something to do, I'll immediately hop on it, and wrap the task up. If I have a long-term project, I'll procrastinate. A task that enters my immediate list of things to do carries little or no internal resistance; the same task, attached to any kind of prior planning ahead on my part, requires substantial effort to undertake.
Hmm, you may be right.
A quick hypothesis is that when you don't plan, you see every achievement as an improvement over status quo. But when you have a plan, suddenly you compare every step with the goal, so the feedback for every step is "you are not there yet" -- not quite encouraging.
It's like instead of getting emotional rewards for every step we do, we take a huge emotional loan in the planning phase, and then we just have to pay it by work.
That explains why planning - even to ridiculous levels of detail, to the point where I've done most of the work - is enjoyable, yet following up on planning is tedious.
Another suggestion: freedom of choice. Things labeled "fun" you can do or not do, in particular you can always exit them with no negative consequences. Things labeled "work" you have to do (with a varied intensity of "have") and not doing them does have negative consequences.
Hm.
That makes sense given that I'm libertarian. Assuming I follow the standard libertarian psychological profile, I am offended by the loss of my sense of control, even if I'm ceding that sense of control to my past self.
ETA:
I enjoy planning. I despise carrying out plans. In the former case, I'm maximizing my current control over my self. In the latter case, I'm resisting the control over myself I have previously exerted, in order to maximize my current control over my self.
see my comment.