I'm lagging so behind on a solo-work project, which is probably 10% of my overall job and not directly related to the profile I was hired for. I am at a position where it has been assumed that this work is complete, my manager has faith in me because I was monitored weekly for it and was doing well 5-6 years ago when I was initially hired, and although I have been vocal about it being hard for me, its been one of the "oh but you're good at it and someone has to do it". Yet, over the last 4 years, I've stopped doing it and nobody has checked. The problem is that it is still very much my responsibility, and the work in this area has been piling up. I can't get myself out of this now - if I bring up a request to transfer the project to someone else, I will still need to have it finished for up to today/the day of the transfer.

It is causing more anxiety and sleepless nights than anything else in my life. It isn't hard, its just tedious and boring work that I have avoided for so long, but I keep rationalising it away as "oh its not even essential, nobody has found out in all this time - it isn't helping anyone if I did it, its a stupid formality and nobody cares anyway". But even though its a stupid formality, I know im going to be relieved when im done with it, but it is so dread-inducing at this point and its reached such monumental proportions, im not sure where or how to start.

I need to focus on the actual getting it done rather than the constant self-talk of 'how did I let it get so bad' and if I dont find a way to fix it soon, it could be an issue at a job where I otherwise excel and am doing rather well. I have considered looking for a new job and just quitting and leaving this unfishied, but that seems like a big overreaction to avoid something that objectively is boring but not difficult work. I have tried breaking it down into smaller chunks, now the only thing that remains is doing it. The first chunk would be about 50-60 hours of work, and I can manage to carve time for it in my free time this week and over the weekend. The problem is that every opportunity I get I procrastinate by watching nonsense on YouTube or scrolling on social media, and the guilt building doesn't help either. I dont have anyone at home who can help me with being accountable about not wasting time online and first prioritising at least a few hours a day to get this done. How do you'll handle this kind of thing? I dont want to find myself at the end of this week and still be in the same position of not having begun, something about the new year has propelled me to wanting to change this, but I dont trust myself to be motivated enough to start and follow through with this.

UPDATE: 11 days in, I have managed to start and get about 30% done, and it wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. And now since I have some momentum, I have some realistic targets on how long it will take and when I might have it done by, which has helped settle the anxiousness by a TON. Thank you for everyone who stopped by to encourage me!