Often, the following are true at the same time:
- I tell myself that the work should take very little time, after all it's easy.
- I tell myself that the work is shallow, and not the deep work that I like.
- The actual work isn't even well defined yet!
As a result I refuse to think deeply about what to do (because it's shallow, right?), there is no chance I feel good about myself (because no matter how quick or good I do it, that's no surprise, it was small and shallow). And because I didn't actually think about it, I don't realize just how vague those few requirements I have are. And so I feel miserable, kick myself for procrastinating, and no matter how hard I push myself to start, that of course doesn't work because the problem isn't defined well enough.
So instead I try to tell myself that my work actually is fun, I can make it interesting because I'm going to take a moment to think about doing it the right way, and first I'm going to take a short walk in the park to think about it, write some thoughts down and then discuss with a stakeholder to check if what I have in mind is what they intended. And then I try to get the thing started, and usually I am then in deep work territory immediately.
It sucks but you absolutely must prioritize getting that work done and off your desk as soon as possible. I tackle this work with the energy of a rabid dog, using my hate for it as fuel to work quickly. Afterwards, I make a nice cup of tea. It still sucks, but I am minimizing the total amount of time I spend with this type of work on my mind which has had ineffable benefits on my mental state
If possible, get a coworker into the flow by working up drafts and having them review and provide feedback. while waiting for feedback, it isn't on your desk. If you have to provide your own feedback, still chunk and draft the work as if you were sending it to a coworker and then create a time-block for when to review it yourself.
I have a lot of 'shallow work' right now as you describe. I am at a small business and I often get other peoples shallow work randomly dropped on my desk as well since my desk is also an operations overflow.
"Starting at 14:00, work on slides for 45 minutes tops"
keep the two separate. half days assigned to shallow.