When the race goes bad, run the next mile marker. Then the next. Then you’re done.

When the plan is already ruined, the mind keeps recalculating the whole remaining distance, which is the one calculation guaranteed to feel impossible. Shrinking the unit changes the arithmetic without changing the work. One marker is always reachable, and reachable is all the next piece has to be. Enough of those in a row and the thing is finished, whether or not it went the way you wanted.

Apply it to the longest item on your plate right now. Set a marker you can reach in twenty minutes and go only that far before you look up again.