Some good mind hacks here, but I have to say that changing wording from "do my taxes" to "organize my finances" is not a way to reduce dread.
I have done my taxes about 18 times in my life. I have yet to organize my finances.
I have done my taxes about 18 times in my life. I have yet to organize my finances.
Beyond the laugh, though, I find that a very strange rewording suggestion. Usually the advice (and I've found this good) is to make the to-do more specific and concrete. An open-ended project-sized item like "organize my finances" is a foolproof candidate for procrastination. "Do my taxes" is better, but might still be too big depending on the complexity.
A real to-do for either would be something like "Collect tax forms and order by date (note: there may be one under the couch?)" -- it's reasonably scoped and has a very clear "I'm done" criterion.
(EDIT: Looking at the article, it seems that "breaking it down" is indeed the suggestion. The specific wording chosen is still strange; it seems the author means something close to "gather documents" by "organize my finances".)
Thing is, watch a 'professional' work in the field you dread, and you will quickly pick on tricks of the trade and workflows that really change it to something quite easy (if you find the right person). Then the dreaded task becomes emulating that person, which is a lot easier the subsequent years. (e.g. have spreadsheets set up like them, follow the same steps, etc.)
From coding perspective, there is a point where rewriting is better than refactoring. Then you get to piecemeal attack the rewrite with the same resources allocated to refactoring, which rarely is possible.
Oh, looks like it was edited. :-)