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• Procrastination: The action of delaying or postponing something. Oxford Dictionary
• Procrastination: the act of delaying something that must be done, often because it is unpleasant or boring. Cambridge Dictionary
• Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. Napoleon Hill
• In the dim background of our mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. William James
• Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today. Wayne Dyer
• Making a start,  Perfectionism

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Procrastination can do great harm

• Avoid delays: procrastination always does harm. Lucanus (Marcus Annaeus Lucan)
• In the conduct of almost every affair slowness and procrastination are hateful. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Delay is the deadliest form of denial. Northcote Parkinson
• Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer. Next day the fatal precedent will plead; thus on, til wisdom is pushed out of life. Edward Young
• Delay not till tomorrow to be wise; tomorrow’s sun to thee may never rise. William Congreve
• He who hesitates is last. Mae West
• In delay there lies no plenty. William Shakespeare
• Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage. Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

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Procrastination steals time

• Procrastination is the thief of time. Edward Young
• You may delay, but time will not. Benjamin Franklin
• The trouble is that you think you have time. Jack Kornfield
• Do not delay, do not delay: the golden moments fly! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Space we can recover; time never. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Procrastination has been called a thief, – the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It is a murderer; and that which it kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul. William Nevins
• Procrastination is the thief of time; year after year it steals, till all are fled, and to the mercies of a moment leaves the vast concerns of an eternal state. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; at fifty chides his infamous delay, pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; in all the magnanimity of thought, resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same. Edward Young
• The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started. Dawson Trotman
• The greatest thief this world has ever produced is procrastination, and he is still at large. Henry Wheelter Shaw
• There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back. Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
• Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity. Jean de La Bruyère
• Time destroyed is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. Edward Young
• Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed, and is delayed in the execution. Vishnu Sarma
• Time wasted is existence; used is life. Edward Young
• Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. M. Scott Peck
• Until you value yourself, you will not value your time.
• Time

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Procrastination steals opportunities

• Procrastination has robbed us of too many opportunities. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin. Victor Kiam
• Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
• Opportunity

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Procrastination steals dreams

• Procrastination is the greatest stealer of dreams. Robin Sharma
• A year from now you may wish you had started today. Karen Lamb
• He who awaits much can expect little. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• If you have goals and procrastination you have nothing. If you have goals and you take action, you will have anything you want. Thomas J. Vilord
• In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it. Charles Baudelaire
• Dreams

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Procrastination steals energy

• A task left undone remains undone in two places — at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience. Brahma Kumaris
• Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing so futile. Bertrand Russell
• Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. William James
• The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself. Rita Emmett
• Energy management

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Procrastination steals joy and happiness

• The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you’ve made up your mind–jump in. Charles R. Swindoll
• Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy. Wayne Dyer
• Joy,  Happiness,  Unhappiness

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Procrastination gets nothing done

• What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• By the streets of ‘by and by,’ one arrives at the house of ‘never’. Miguel De Cervantes
• Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing. William Feather
• …who waits until circumstances completely favor his undertaking, will never accomplish anything. Martin Luther
• How soon not now, becomes never. Martin Luther King
• How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time. Fred Brooks
• It’s a job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish. R. R. Tolkien
• Lingering labors come to naught. Robert Southwell

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Procrastination prevents success

• Indecisiveness and procrastination are the chosen ways of life for most people. They follow the course of least resistance, which is to do nothing. This provides a security blanket of never being wrong, never making mistakes, never being disappointed and never failing. But they will also never succeed. David People, Selling to the Top
• Procrastination is a way for us to be satisfied with second-rate results; we can always tell ourselves we’d have done a better job if only we’d had more time. If you’re good at rationalizing, you can keep yourself feeling rather satisfied this way, but it’s a cheap happy. You’re whittling your expectations of yourself down lower and lower. Richard O’Connor
• Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy. Wayne Dyer
• Begin while others are procrastinating. Work while others are wishing. William Arthur Ward
• Success,  Failure

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Procrastination makes undone tasks become more and more difficult …

• Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back. Charles Kingsley
• No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare. Charles Baudelaire
• It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Seneca
• Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. Mason Cooley
• Putting off an easy thing makes it hard and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. George H. Lorimer
• When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller.

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… bringing stress and unhappiness

• A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large. Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
• Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it. Miguel De Cervantes
• Don’t procrastinate. Putting off an unpleasant task until tomorrow simply gives you more time for your imagination to make a mountain out a possible molehill. More time for anxiety to sap your self-confidence. Do it now, brother, do it now. Science Digest, 1949
• If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it. Olin Miller
• Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started. David Allen
• Stress,  Unhappiness,  Anxiety

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Procrastination brings regret

• Procrastination usually results in sorrowful regret. Today’s duties put off until tomorrow give us a double burden to bear; the best way is to do them in their proper time. Ida Scott Taylor
• Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney Harris
• The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity. Helen Rowland
• There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today. Mignon McLaughlin
• Regret

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Procrastination crushes the soul

• The most life-destroying word of all is the word tomorrow. Robert Kiyosaki
• Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary. William Shakespeare
• Depression turned my body, mind and soul into concrete; procrastination turned my heart into a block of dirty ice. Dolly Sen
• Vagueness and procrastination are ever a comfort to the frail in spirit. John Updike
• Procrastination is the kidnapper of souls and the recruiting-officer of hell. Edward Irving
• The soul

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Procrastination brings peril

• Delay is as hateful as it is dangerous. Thomas Holcroft
• Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends. William Shakespeare
• Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin. Hesiod
• Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers
• Nothing so perilous as procrastination John Lyly
• Procrastination is the seed of self destruction. Matthew Burton

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Transcending procrastination brings rewards

• The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They’re full of eagerness, zest, productivity. You can be, too. Norman Vincent Peale
• Many fine things can be done in a day if you don’t always make that day tomorrow.
• Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing! Donald Gardner
• During a very busy life I have often been asked, How did you manage to do it all? The answer is very simple. It is because I did everything promptly. Richard Tangye
• Everything in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy. William A. Alcott
• He who puts off nothing till tomorrow has done a great deal. Baltasar Graci

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Procrastination can have deep seated roots

• Procrastination is a sign of a bigger issue. Stop trying to fix your procrastination as a problem and start thinking about why you are procrastinating in the first place. Celestine Chua

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We procrastinate to protect our self-worth

• Procrastination is “a neurotic form of self-defensive behavior” aimed at protecting one’s self- worth. That is, we procrastinate when we fear a threat to our sense of worth and independence. Neil Fiore
• Self-worth

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We procrastinate due to fear of failure and fear of success

• Having a fear of failure means you believe that even the smallest error could be evidence that you are a worthless and awful person. Having a fear of being imperfect means that it is difficult for you to accept yourself as you are—imperfect and, therefore, perfectly human—and so you interpret any criticism, rejection, or judgment by others as a threat to your very tenuous grasp on perfection. Having a fear of impossible expectations means fearing that even after you’ve worked hard and achieved the goals set for you, your only reward will be continually higher and more difficult goals to achieve, with no rest and no time to savor your achievements. Neil Fiore
• It is the fear of failure, the fear of being imperfect (perfectionism), and the fear of impossible expectations (being overwhelmed) that prevent us from acting on and attaining humanly possible goals and relationships. Neil Fiore
• Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy. Denis Waitley
• Fear,  Failure,  Success

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We procrastinate due to fear of judgement

• The fear of judgment is the key fear that stems from over-identifying who you are, your worth as a person, with your work. From this fear follows the counterproductive drive toward perfectionism, severe self- criticism, and the fear that you must deprive yourself of leisure time in order to satisfy some unseen judge. Neil Fior
• We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate. Erica Jong
• Criticism,  Rejection

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We procrastinate due to anxiety and doubt

• There is one main reason why we procrastinate: it rewards us with temporary relief from stress. Neil Fiore
• If, because of anxiety and self-doubt, you procrastinate and only think about working, you’ll feel more exhausted than if you’d created for hours. Eric Maisel
• Anxiety,  Doubt

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We procrastinate because it feels comfortable at the time

• There’s nothing to match curling up with a good book when there’s a repair job to be done around the house. Joe Ryan

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Overcome procrastination by creating an indisputable sense of self worth

• It’s as if your projects become more than just work to be taken care of; for you they become reflections of your worth as a person. Neil Fiore
• A perfectionist is even more sensitive to failure because having his or her work judged “average” is tantamount to being considered “a failure as a person. Neil Fiore
• Whatever happens, my self-worth will survive. I make myself safe. Neil Fiore
• Understand that procrastination is not a character defect; rather, it is an attempt—albeit an unsatisfactory one—at coping with the often-incapacitating fear of having our worth held up for judgment. Neil Fiore
• In order to maximize your performance in a stressful world, you must create a protected and indisputable sense of worth for yourself. Until you do, energy and concentration will be drained from work and put into preparing for imagined threats to your survival, and into procrastination as a means of coping. Regardless of how you do it, or what you say, provide a safe place where you make yourself free of judgment, a place and a time where you can stop trying to perform perfectly. Neil Fiore
• If you had a guarantee from your Strongest Self that your worth is safe and that even when you experience a failure you’ll never be a failure, what would you try? Neil Fiore
• Self-worth

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Don’t get your sense of identity from just one area of your life

• The need to procrastinate as a protection against criticism and failure is particularly strong for those who feel they have to succeed at one specific goal, seeing no acceptable alternatives. Those who gain their sense of identity from many areas are more resilient when failing in any one area. Neil Fiore
• The more complex and varied your sense of self, the less likely you are to become depressed over stress in one area, because ‘you have these uncontaminated areas of your life that can act as buffers. Neil Fiore

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 Change the way you think and talk to yourself

• Realise you always have a choice. Banish the words “I have to.”
• Everything is something you decide to do, and there is nothing you have to do. Denis Waitley
• You do have a choice. You don’t have to want to do the task, nor do you have to love it. But if you prefer it to the consequences of not doing it, you can decide to commit to it wholeheartedly. Neil Fiore
• There is nothing the wise man does reluctantly. Seneca
• We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye. Carlos Castaneda
• It is not discipline, willpower, or pressure from others that facilitates adherence to a challenging course of action. Rather, it is the freedom to choose among alternatives, the personal commitment to a mission, and the willingness to take responsibility for the consequences of our decisions that steels the will and emboldens the spirit. Neil Fiore
• To unleash the power of our true potential, we must learn to shift to a third perspective of adult leadership—replacing the inner conflict between the voices of “you have to” and “I don’t want to” with the ability of our Strongest Self to operate from a fully evolved brain that permits us to assert “I choose. Neil Fiore
• I believe that should is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use should, we are, in effect, saying ‘wrong.’ Either we are wrong or we were wrong or we are going to be wrong. I don’t think we need more wrongs in our life. We need to have more freedom of choice. I would like to take the word should and remove it from the vocabulary forever. I’d replace it with the word could. Could gives us a choice, and we are never wrong. Louise Haye
• Self talk

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Replace negative thoughts with more constructive ones

• Replace ‘I have to’ with “I choose to.
• Replace ‘I must finish’ with ‘When can I start?’
• Replace ‘This project is so big and important” with ‘I can take one small step.’
• Replace “This is so big / difficult / complex” with “I can take one small step: one rough, rough draft, one imperfect sketch.
• Replace ‘I must be perfect’ with ‘I can be perfectly human.’
• Replace ‘I don’t have time to play’ with “I must take time to play.’
• Replace “I’ve got to get this done; I don’t have time for play” with “I must make time for play.” Reward yourself with fun, friendship, exercise, whatever, after you’ve made your start. This makes making the next start much easier.
• Combined, this becomes: “I choose to start on one small imperfect step, knowing that I have plenty of time to enjoy life.”
• Source:  Neil Fiore

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Using empowering self-talk

• As you begin to speak to yourself in a language that focuses on results rather than blame, on choice rather than have to, on what is rather than what you think should be, you will find that your body and mind cooperate by providing a level of positive energy free from the unnecessary struggles of the past and negative comparisons with the future. Neil Fiore
• Each time you choose to switch your energy from your procrastination self-talk to the language of the producer, you are wiring in a new track of brain cells—a new neural pathway in your brain. After you switch from the old path to the new several times, the new associations will strengthen, becoming easier to initiate, while the old ones will atrophy. Neil Fiore
• Certainly, others are frequently in positions of power to affect you and your job, and they might even try to judge your work or your skills. But they can never make you into a victim or a procrastinator. Only you can do that. Neil Fiore

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Perfectionism is a major cause of procrastination

• Procrastination follows perfectionistic or overwhelming demands and a fear that even minor mistakes will lead to devastating criticism and failure. Neil Fiore
• The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may be spelled ‘Paralysis’. Winston Churchill
• Perfectionism is the enemy of creation. John Updike
• If you demand of yourself a perfect presentation, a project that is beyond criticism, perfect adherence to a diet, or a spotless home, you are setting yourself up for defeat and inevitable self- The more perfectionist and self- critical you are, the harder it is to start on a project that you already know will never be quite good enough. Holding on to an image of perfection will make you afraid of seeing what your real product will look like, it will keep you from preparing for failure with a plan that helps you bounce back, and it will increase your tendency to abandon your project when confronted with a normal problem in the developmental process. Ironically, being a perfectionist and criticizing yourself about mistakes makes failures more likely and worse. Neil Fiore
• Perfectionism

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Perfectionism is debilitating and demotivating

• Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. Harriet Braiker
• Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough – that we should try again. Julia Cameron
• Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. Salvador Dali
• A lot of disappointed people have been left standing on the street corner waiting for the bus marked Perfection. Donald Kennedy
• Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. Anne Lamott
• Nothing gives a man a sense of failure so often as an overdeveloped sense of perfection. George S. Odiorue
• Perfection is the absolute lowest standard you can ever have for yourself because it’s impossible to attain. Tony Robbins
• There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection. Rumi
• Perfection’ is man’s ultimate illusion. It simply doesn’t exist in the universe…. If you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.” David Burns
• Over-preparation is the foe of inspiration. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis. Brené Brown
• Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism…confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. David M. Burns
• Don’t let the desire for perfection become procrastination. Danielle LaPorte

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Beat perfectionism by consciously trying to be imperfect

• Try to be imperfect. Intentionally do the first part of your project sloppily (don’t show it to your boss yet); do it fast and inadequately. Neil Fiore
• Settle for “good enough” rather than wasting time on unnecessary perfection. Stever Robbins
• Follow Guy Kawasaki’s wisdom and “Think crappy!” Just get to work!! Identify the first milestone you want to hit. Just get to work! Then, as Kawasaki says, “Churn, baby, churn!” As you move forward from your first crappy version, “churn” it so it evolves into a more and more beautiful masterpiece. Brian Johnson
• Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. Robert H. Schuller
• Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times. Brian Tracy

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Accept mistakes and be easy on yourself

• Accept “mistakes” as feedback, and part of the natural learning process. In fact, try to be imperfect. Intentionally do the first part of your project sloppily: rough draft in crayon, or on a coffee- stained old envelope. Neil Fiore
• It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually. Abraham Maslow
• Replace demands for perfect work with acceptance of (not resignation to) your human limits. Accept so- called mistakes (really feedback) as part of a natural learning process. You need self- compassion rather than self- criticism to support your courageous efforts at facing the unavoidable risks of doing real, imperfect work rather than dreaming of the perfect, completed project. You’ll want to be especially gentle with yourself as you recognize that, as a novice, you must go through awkward first steps before you achieve the assurance of a master. As you learn to expect and accept imperfect early steps on your projects, you’ll build in the persistence of a producer, and you’ll be better prepared to bounce back because you’ll have a safety net of compassion. Neil Fiore
• Mistakes

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Break big tasks into small ones

• The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting with the first one. Mark Twain
• Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks. Focus on completing just one of those tasks. Leo Babauta
• Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. Henry Ford
• Start with just one small task from the project, instead of trying to tackle everything at once. Leo Babauta
• Replace ‘This project is so big and important” with ‘I can take one small step. Neil Fiore
• Do nothing by halves which can be done by quarters. R. Scott
• Doing just a little bit during the time we have available puts you that much further ahead than if you took no action at all. Byron Pulsifer
• Don’t wait for your ship to come in and feel angry and cheated when it doesn’t. Get going with something small. Irene Kassorla
• The power of small steps

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Make your first step a small, simple one and take it now

• Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now. Jonatan Mårtensson
• Don’t wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater. Mary Manin Morrissey
• If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem… break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time. Robert Collier
• Making a start

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Focus on taking just one small action at a time in the present

• Get started today by looking three feet in front of you, not three miles. A long gaze at the mountain crest will overwhelm you, so stop looking at it. The key to achieving enormous tasks is to break them down into their smallest parts. MJ DeMarco
• I dream of men who take the next step instead of worrying about the next thousand steps. Theodore Roosevelt
• Never confuse yourself by visions of an entire lifetime at once… remember that it is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Marcus Aurelius
• To make the quickest progress, you don’t have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps—and keep on taking them. Marci Shimoff
• It is the Baby Steps you take, the everyday things you do, that eventually lead to the manifestation of your outcome. David Emerald
• Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts. Lao Tzu
• Simply center yourself in the moment and ask, “What’s right in front of me?” and “What can I do right now to move forward, even if it’s just by a little bit?” Marelisa Fábrega
• Live in the present

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Realise the time is never just right

• Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. Napoleon Hill
• If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
• He who begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin. Horace
• If you wait until all the lights are green before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top. Zig Ziglar
• So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. Lee Iacocca
• Don’t wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations. Charles Richter

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Procrastinating with decision making can take a heavy toll …

• If you put off everything ’till you’re sure of it, you’ll get nothing done. Norman Vincent Peale
• In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt
• Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he’ll never move. Paulo Coelho
• Remember that not making a decision is a decision not to take action. Meir Liraz
• Do nothing, and nothing happens. Life is about decisions. You either make them or they’re made for you, but you can’t avoid them. Mhairi McFarlane, You Had Me At Hello
• He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg. Chinese Proverb
• Decision making

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… while making a decision brings great calm and order to the mind

• Nothing brings order to a disordered mind like making a decision and letting it stand. Tony Robbins
• A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one. Rita Mae Brown
• I banish about 90 per cent of my worries by taking these four steps: 1. Writing down precisely what I am worried about. 2. Writing down what I can do about it. 3. Deciding what to do. 4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision. Dale Carnegie
• You will find that decisions are liberating. The paradox is that some of the most stressed people on the planet are people who are frozen by indecision. There is a tremendous energy and peace that decision making brings. Dave Ramsey
• The opposite of fear is not happiness, it is decisiveness. Have no fear; happiness is to be found in having made a decision. Michael Rawls
• Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? Elias Canetti
• Calmness,  Order

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Some decisions are best postponed if there is uncertainty …

• Sometimes the best decision is to do nothing, at least for a while
• One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned recently is that when you don’t know what to do, you should do nothing until you figure out what to do because a lot of times you feel like you are pressed against the wall, and you’ve got to make a decision. You never have to do anything. Don’t know what to do? Do nothing. Oprah Winfrey
• Sometimes, simply decide not to decide.
• To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. Hippocrates

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… so by all means deliberate when necessary …

• There is sometimes only a very fine line between deliberation and procrastination. Paul A. Walker, FCC Chairman
• Take your time and deliberate carefully, especially if the decision is an important one
• Never let someone force you to make a hasty decision. Think about it in your own time.
• That should be considered long which can be decided but once. Publilius Syrus
• Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. Sophocles
• Be slow to resolve, but quick in performance. John Dryden
• A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully
• that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise
• him, much less drain his power. Carlos Castaneda
• Just because we increase the speed of information doesn’t mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture. Dale Dauten

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… but don’t overdo it

• To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. Eva Young
• Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it. Quintillain
• He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg. Chinese Proverb
• The opportunity often slips away while we deliberate on it. Syrus

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Learn to be decisive

• In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt
• When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice. William James

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Focus on what is important

• Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all. Mignon McLaughlin
• Put first things first

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Stop putting things off

• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Thomas Jefferson

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Reward yourself

• Reward yourself. Tell yourself that if you sit at your desk and work on your taxes for 45 minutes without interruptions, you’ll reward yourself with that delicious brownie that’s in the fridge. Marelisa Fábrega
• Break each task down into small action steps; make it easy to identify when you’ve completed each step; reward yourself for each achievement, even if it’s just by acknowledging and congratulating yourself each time you complete an item; repeat. Marelisa Fábrega

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Realise the power of action

• Often just by taking action, by doing something about the situation can relieve the stress and help correct the situation. Catherine Pulsifer
• The best way to get something done is to begin.
• Action

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Quit talking and start doing

• Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both. John Andrew Holms
• Stop talking. Start walking. M. Heroux
• The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. Walt Disney

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Keep track of how you spend your time

• Grab a notebook and a pen; for an entire week, write down everything that you do and how much time you spend on it. You may be shocked to discover that you waste enormous amounts of time aimlessly surfing the web, reading blogs that don’t really help improve your quality of life, “chatting” on Twitter, and so on. Ask yourself how your life would improve if you used that time productively instead. Marelisa Fábrega

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Act in spite of your mood

• I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. Pearl S. Buck
• Perhaps the most valuable result of an education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. Thomas Huxley
• You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good. Jerry West
• Mood

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Remove clutter

• Clutter is highly associated with procrastination. Each of those extraneous items on your desk, workspace, or computer desktop is a distraction, a reminder of something else to do.  You can reduce your procrastination greatly by eliminating distracting cues.  Richard O’Connor
• Clutter

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Schedule it

• Block out a day of the week, or an hour of every day, in which you don’t schedule appointments, accept invitations, or allow interruptions. That day, or that hour, is blocked off for working on a project that’s important to you. Marelisa Fábrega

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Make time for play

• Replace “I don’t have time to play” with “I must take time to play.” Neil Fiore
• A firm commitment to guilt-free play will recharge your batteries, creating renewed motivation, creativity, and energy for all the other areas of your life. Neil Fiore
• You can be more productive if you play more! Neil Fiore
• The vitality of his play carried over into his work and he thoroughly enjoyed challenges in both spheres of his life. Neil Fiore
• If you know that at three o’clock you’re hitting the golf course with your best friend–and golf is one of your favorite activities–you’re much more likely to sit down and get to work than you would be if you were facing an entire day of drudgery. Marelisa Fábrega
• Play

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Try the Irish way

• There’s also the Irish way of overcoming procrastination. Confronted with a wall too high to climb, the Irishman throws his hat over it.  Now he must find a way over the wall.  If I have to paint a room, I’ll likely get the paint and start the first coat as soon as I can, disrupting the whole household in the process.  That way I’m fully committed and have to finish quickly.  Richard O’Connor

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Stop relying on tomorrow …

• Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. Spanish Proverb
• Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. Benjamin Franklin
• Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools, reform, and mortal men lay hold on heaven. Edward Young
• Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man. Jimmy Lyons
• Unhappy he who does this work adjourn, And to tomorrow would the search delay: His lazy morrow will be like today. But is one day of ease too much to borrow? Yes, sure: for yesterday was once tomorrow. Perseus
• Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. Napoleon Hill
• The most life-destroying word of all is the word tomorrow. Robert Kiyosaki

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… for tomorrow is far from assured

• Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. Pablo Picasso
• We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it? Buddha
• Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized. Leo Buscaglia
• Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.  Wayne Dyer

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Today is all that you truly have for certain

• Yesterday is a cancelled cheque. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely. Kim Lyons
• Always remember that tomorrow is not assured
• Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. Benjamin Franklin
• Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Lord Chesterfield
• Pile up too many tomorrows and you’ll find that you’ve collected nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays. The Music Man
• Believe me, ‘I shall live’ is not the saying of a wise man. Tomorrow’s life is too late: live today. Martial
• Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow. James A. Michener
• Embrace the gift of today

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Don’t postpone living life to the full right now …

• Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning. John Henry Cardinal Newman
• One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today. Dale Carnegie
• It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living. Eckhart Tolle
• If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don’t wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.  Senegalese Proverb
• We are always getting ready to live but never living. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. Horace
• Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Lord Chesterfield
• This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live. General Omar Bradley

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… for we don’t when our lives will end …

• If we accept and internalize the fact of our own mortality, then, by definition, we have to deal with the essential questions of how we live and spend our allotted time. We have to stop procrastinating, pretending that we have forever to do what we want to do and be what we long to be. Surya Das
• It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had. Elizabeth Kǔbler-Ross
• Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand—and melting like a snowflake. Francis Bacon
• None of us knows if we’ll live to see another day, how long we may have together, to know love, to experience tenderness, to share oneself with another. Once we know what we want, there is no time to waste, no need for hesitation, vacillation or delay. Just do it. Larry Chang

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… and we run the risk of dying without ever having lived

• Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized. Leo Buscaglia
• Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Timothy Ferriss
• Every man dies. Not every man really lives. Braveheart
• The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it. M. Lewis
• To be always intending to make a new and better life but never to find time to set about it is as…to put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day to the next until you’re dead. Og Mandino

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Old age can creep up on you unexpectedly and you don’t want to end up with regret

• I don’t know how you feel about old age… but in my case I didn’t even see it coming. It hit me from the rear.  Phyllis Diller
• A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time. Oliver W. Holmes, Sr.
• The only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. Gloria Pitzer
• Success is never wondering “what if…?” Karrie Huffman
• Forget yesterday. It’s gone and you will never get it back. Focus on making today a day you will not regret tomorrow. Stephen Mills
• The pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret. Sarah Bombell
• I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn’t know, I held opportunity. Hazel Lee
• Pile up too many tomorrows and you’ll find that you’ve collected nothing but a bunch of empty yesterdays. The Music Man
• When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch.
• You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger. The Dalai Lama (the 14th)
• Believe me, ‘I shall live’ is not the saying of a wise man. Tomorrow’s life is too late: live today. Martial
• Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live. M. Scott Peck
• I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung. Rabindranath Tagore
• Lose this day loitering; t’will be the same old story tomorrow, and the next day more dilatory … Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting o’er lost days. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain
• Getting older gracefully

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• Anyone can do any amount of work providing it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. Robert Benchley
• For tomorrow ye may die, but alas we never do. Dorothy Parker
• Hard work: An accumulation of easy things that should have been done last week
• I do my work at the same time each day — the last minute.
• I have not yet begun to procrastinate.
• I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. Jerome K. Jerome
• I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams
• I plan to procrastinate, but as yet cannot seem to find the time.
• I’m going to stop putting off things starting tomorrow. Sam Levenson
• I’m great at multitasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.
• I’ve been looking over the list of spring chores I made up last fall, and darned if they aren’t fall chores, after all. Robert Brault
• I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow! Sam Levenson
• If a thing’s worth doing, its worth doing late. Frederick Oliver
• If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.
• It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. Lord Chesterfield
• It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all. James Thurber
• Many fine things can be done in a day if you don’t always make that day tomorrow.
• My parents told me I’d never amount to anything because I procrastinated too much. I told them, ‘Just you wait’. Judy Tenuta
• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. Mark Twain
• One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow. Vincent T. Foss
• Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday.
• Procrastinate now, don’t put it off. Ellen DeGeneres
• Procrastination gives you something to look forward to. Joan Konner
• Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill. Christopher Parker
• Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you’re only screwing yourself.
• Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow.   I know that I should stop it.  In fact, I will – tomorrow!  Gloria Pitzer
• Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin. Kiam Victor
• Procrastination is reading all the quotes on this page when you have a huge report due tomorrow. T. A. Birektt
• Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. Don Marquis
• Procrastination: A hardening of the oughteries.
• Procrastinators: Leaders of Tomorrow.
• Somebody was using the pencil. Dorothy Parker (on missing a deadline)
• Someday is not a day of the week.
• The nicest thing about the future is … that it always starts tomorrow.
• The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.
• The time to begin most things is ten years ago. Mignon McLaughlin
• The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.
• Today’s greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow. , Woodrow Wilson
• We went to lunch and were talking about procrastination and the waitress overheard us and she said, ‘I have a problem with procrastination, too.’ I said ‘Really?… Get my sandwich.’ Ellen DeGeneres
• When I think of procrastination I think of masturbation. Both feel really, really good while you are doing it; but in the end, you are fucking yourself. Ana Kasparian
• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. C. Northcote Parkinson, 1958
• Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow. Don Herold
• You know you are getting old when it takes too much effort to procrastinate.

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