Written elsewhere and pasted here for the archive/future reference/whatever help it may be to some one, somewhere, beyond helping myself:
Distraction is the way the mind avoids things.
Whenever you find yourself feeling unable to “get anything done”, focus you mind on where you are and pull your thoughts from all but this moment (no thought of history or memory, no thought of future or “plans”).
What you’re left with is what and how you are feeling and thinking right now…. of course, this is very uncomfortable for a lot of people for a variety of reasons.
But until you are still long enough to stop denying what’s waiting in the stillness (the thing you avoid, the thing you fear, the thing you have to handle but are avoiding), it is impossible to reach a feeling of direction (because you’re always fighting yourself too hard to manage it).