How do you work on projects you don't like? [Need mental support :(]

As a developer, I have to work on variety of projects for my company and my clients. If I find a project interesting, I make progress on light-speed. My coding becomes productive; my mood stays happy. This also happens when I work on my own ideas, side projects, etc.
But I find it extremely difficult to work on projects I don't like! I cannot make any progress even for months in such cases. During such a period, I can't even work on any other projects as well. E.g., projects I like working on, my side projects, or some interesting ideas I have in todos. That only increase the number of pending tasks. Because when I sit at my desk and start writing codes, the unfinished tasks on the projects I don't like becomes a burden. And I have that urge to finish it first and then start working on other projects. But again, I cannot make any progress there. After opening the project files, I start browsing the internet mindlessly. My mind feels like avoiding starting working on the project at any cost. And at the end of the day, I feel depressed because there is no progress. I'm stressed about the jammed tasks.
I'm trapped, frustrated, and depressed; Please help me out of this.
Please advise what can I do in such case.

Comments

[Jesus Guerrero]

Hello, I would try to find the cause of the uncomfort.

Its complexity? The tooling? The area of the project, the code, etc try to find a cause and improve that area of the project if you can.

Planning ahead your activities and not working on the project beyond than you working hours. It can cause burnout.

Talk with your leadership about it, as you mentioned if you worked in other kind of projects successfully you can tell your managers how you feel and that you are more productive in other kind of projects and remind them those where you made an impact and ask if they can move you from that project.

If you don't have the confidence with your managers to discuss the previous point start looking for another Job. But bear in mind it is something that can happen multiple times in your career and is good to try to face them first but if is bothering you so much the right path is to move on.

Good luck and take care.

[Chris Greening]

I've been facing a somewhat similar situation lately

For a while I was able to tell myself "sooner started, sooner done" to keep me moving through the projects/tasks but over weeks and months it started contributing to significant burnout and I wasn't getting my other work done. This was making me anxious and even more burned out thinking about the prospect of getting through the backlog that was steadily building up and it was this never ending cycle

Eventually I had to tell my boss that those particular tasks were not an effective use of my time and he immediately switched gears and found someone better suited to handle those tasks to take the load off my back and I was able to get back to the work I'm very effective at

I'm only now making steady gains through the backlog that built up and it'll take me about a month to get back on track but I feel more confident grinding through the next month of work I enjoy than I did about doing even a couple days of those other tasks

If possible maybe talk to your manager or lead and communicate your situation and see what they say - there's a good chance they don't realize that this is an ineffective use of your skills. I was able to silently build a lot of resentment, frustration, and burnout in my personal echo chamber and all I had to do to resolve it was have a 2 minute conversation with my boss

Best of luck my friend! You're not alone in these feelings - being a developer can be a rough gig sometimes

[Mozammel Haque]

Sorry to hear your struggle mate! I really hope you get over this pretty soon. I can't really give you any advise on your current situation. But I wish I could.