A place to begin
The smallest useful beginning is often an order of work, rather than a burst of effort.
A loose thread hangs from the sleeve of a favourite jacket. You have been meaning to repair it all month. This evening, instead of deciding to become someone who mends things, you put a needle and matching thread beside the jacket.
Chapter 64 of the Daodejing attends to beginnings: the small conditions from which something larger can grow. Its account also warns against spoiling work near its end. Neither part asks us to keep adding tasks to a list.
At a desk, the equivalent might be a blank document with a customer's actual question at the top. In the kitchen, it might be a chopping board cleared before you choose what to cook. There is now a visible place to begin.
Reading note
Source: Daodejing, chapter 64 (James Legge edition). The everyday scene and experiment are DAOEVER’s interpretation.