Writing long reports is one of those work tasks that always sounds noble in theory and absolutely soul-sapping in practice. You start with enthusiasm. You’ve got your outline, your coffee, maybe even a colour-coded folder structure if you’re feeling ambitious. Then comes the research. Then the rabbit holes. Then the conflicting sources. And before you know it, you’re sitting at your kitchen table in your “work-from-home” hoodie, muttering at your laptop about page numbers and cross-references.