This AI prompt gets you started on a big task in 25 minutes. It ignores the whole project & gives you a checklist for the next 25 minutes only, with steps small enough that you don’t have to make decisions.

Turn a big task into a no-brainer checklist (Pomodoro Technique)

You know what you need to do. The project is sitting there. Starting is the hard part because the whole thing feels too big. This prompt throws the project away & asks the LLM for 1 thing: a checklist so simple you can start without thinking.

I'm stuck on [TASK]. Break it into a single 25-minute starting move. Not the whole project. Just the next 25 minutes.

Give me a step-by-step checklist of what to do in those 25 minutes. Each step should be small enough that I don't have to make decisions. If something on the list needs information I don't have, mark it and skip it.

Why it works: The model can’t give you a roadmap for the whole project. It’s locked into one small window. The checklist comes back small enough that not starting feels worse than starting.

One gap: Not every task has a first step you can do alone. Sometimes you’re waiting on someone else, or the real first move takes hours of uninterrupted focus. The prompt doesn’t account for roadblocks.

Simple fix: Add: “If this task can’t be started in 25 minutes alone, tell me what needs to happen first.”

Original post by u/EQ4C. Link

When one task is part of a full week

Once you’re moving, the weekly planner prompt builds the rest of your week backwards from what a good week looks like. If your head is full of loose tasks, the brain dump prompt sorts them into a plan, & the time audit prompt shows where your hours go.

This prompt first ran in issue 3.