quotes about Procrastination
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How do you gag the voice in your head that says, 'You don't have to [do it] today. There's always tomorrow.'?
-- A. J. Jacobs -
The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The era of procrastination...is coming to a close...we are entering a period of consequences - Winston Churchill (warning about the danger of appeasement
-- Al Gore -
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The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.
-- Alexander Graham BellSource : Mary Kay Ash (1986). “Mary Kay”, Harper Perennial
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Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.
-- Alyce Cornyn-Selby -
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
-- Alyce Cornyn-Selby -
Procrastination is also a subtle act of corruption – it corrupts valuable time
-- Amit Abraham -
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I think a lot of the basis of the open source movement comes from procrastinating students...
-- Andrew Tridgell -
Procrastination is suicide on the installment plan.
-- Arnold Bennett -
For Yesterday was once To-morrow.
-- Aulus Persius FlaccusSource : Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, Aulus Persius Flaccus, John Dryden (1693). “The Satires, Translated Into English Verse by J. Dryden ... Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus Made English by Mr. Dryden”
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He who puts off nothing till tomorrow has done a great deal.
-- Baltasar Gracian -
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Once a job it has begun, do not stop until it's done. Whether it is big or small, do it well or not all.
-- Bear Grylls -
You made delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
To procrastinate seems inherent in man, for if you do to-day that you may enjoy to-morrow it is but deferring the enjoyment; so that to be idle or industrious, vicious or virtuous, is but with a view of procrastinating the one or the other.
-- Benjamin HaydonSource : Benjamin Robert Haydon, Frederick Wordsworth Haydon (1876). “Correspondence and Table-talk: With a Memoir”, p.294
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Your 'frog' should be the most difficult item on your things-to-do list, the one where you're most likely to procrastinate; because, if you eat that first, it'll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day.
-- Brian Tracy -
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Clear, written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. They stimulate your creativity, release your energy, and help you to overcome procrastination as much as any other factor.
-- Brian Tracy -
Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time. The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and getting on with your most important task is a mental and physical skill. As such, this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subsconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behaviour.
-- Brian Tracy -
Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
-- C. Northcote ParkinsonSource : The Law of Delay ch. 13 (1971)
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In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.
-- Charles Baudelaire -
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My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.
-- Charles DickensSource : 'The Complaint: Night Thoughts' (1742-5) 'Night 1' l. 417
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Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.
-- Charles Dickens -
Addiction, self-sabotage, procrastination, laziness, rage, chronic fatigue, and depression are all ways that we withhold our full participation in the program of life we are offered. When the conscious mind cannot find a reason to say no, the unconscious says no in its own way.
-- Charles EisensteinSource : Charles Eisenstein (2013). “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible”, p.2, North Atlantic Books
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Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations.
-- Charles Francis Richter -
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Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.
-- Charles KingsleySource : Charles Kingsley (1873). “Selections from Some of the Writings of the Rev. C. Kingsley, M.A.”, p.143
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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 like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill.
-- Christopher Parker -
The spot paintings, the spin paintings, they're all a mechanical way to avoid the actual guy in a room, myself, with a blank canvas.
-- Damien Hirst -
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Giving up on our long-term goals for immediate gratification, my friends, is procrastination.
-- Dan Ariely -
Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence, as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination .
-- Dan MillerSource : Dan Miller (2015). “48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal”, p.86, B&H Publishing Group
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Don't let your want for perfection become procrastination
-- Danielle LaPorte -
Don't let perfection become procrastination . Do it now.
-- Danielle LaPorte -
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Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
-- David Allen -
There is nothing so fatal to character as half finished tasks.
-- David Lloyd GeorgeSource : David Lloyd George (1918). “The Great Crusade: Extracts from Speeches Delivered During the War”
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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 Peoples -
The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.
-- Dawson Trotman -
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This is a pie chart about procrastination.
-- Demetri Martin -
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 -
Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.
-- Don HeroldSource : Don Herold (1926). “There ought to be a law--”
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Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
-- Don MarquisSource : archy and mehitabel (1927) "certain maxims of archy"
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Potential is an excuse to procrastinate; Ambition is a means to thrive.
-- Donovan King -
I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.
-- E. V. LucasSource : 365 Days and One More (1926) p. 277
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Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Early bird gets the worm, but the second worm gets to live. Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
-- Edgar Bergen -
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Procrastination is the kidnapper of souls and the recruiting-officer of hell.
-- Edward IrvingSource : Edward Irving (1824). “For the oracles of God, four orations. For judgment to come ...”, p.560
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Tomorrow, the busiest day of the week. I'm a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.
-- Elle Varner -
We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
-- Erica Jong -
If we are to achieve long-range goals, we must learn to set up and accomplish short-range goals that will move us along the way. If we do not consciously select our goals, we may be controlled by goals not of our own choosing - goals imposed by outside pressures (such as the expectations of others) or by our habits (such as procrastination) or by our desire for the approval of the world.
-- Ezra Taft Benson -
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Do nothing by halves which can be done by quarters.
-- F. R. ScottSource : F.R. Scott (2013). “Leaving the Shade of the Middle Ground: The Poetry of F.R. Scott”, p.54, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
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How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.
-- Fred Brooks -
I swing between procrastination and being really thorough so either way things aren't getting done quickly.
-- Freema Agyeman -
He who awaits much can expect little.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
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Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.
-- George C. Lorimer -
Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.
-- George Horace Lorimer -
Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there's only one letter between its ends when they occupy their proper places in the alphabet.
-- George Horace LorimerSource : George Horace Lorimer (2016). “Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son”, p.22, Lulu.com
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One thing that's good about procrastination is that you always have something planned for tomorrow.
-- Gladys Bronwyn SternSource : "Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes, and Brilliant Remarks". Book by Karen Weekes, p. 480, March 29, 2007.
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Step by step, you make your way forward. That’s why practices such as daily writing exercises or keeping a daily blog can be so helpful. You see yourself do the work, which shows you that you can do the work. Progress is reassuring and inspiring; panic and then despair set in when you find yourself getting nothing done day after day. One of the painful ironies of work life is that the anxiety of procrastination often makes people even less likely to buckle down in the future.
-- Gretchen Rubin -
Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.
-- Gretchen Rubin -
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
-- Haile SelassieSource : 1963 Address to a special session of the UN General Assembly, 4 Oct, making him the first head of state to address both that organization and the League of Nations.
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I once heard a sober alcoholic say that drinking never made him happy, but it made him feel like he was going to be happy in about fifteen minutes. That was exactly it, and I couldn't understand why the happiness never came, couldn't see the flaw in my thinking, couldn't see that alcohol kept me trapped in a world of illusion, procrastination, paralysis. I lived always in the future, never in the present. Next time, next time! Next time I drank it would be different, next time it would make me feel good again.
-- Heather KingSource : Heather King (2006). “Parched”, p.100, Penguin
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There is a danger in the word someday when what it means is “not this day.â€...The scriptures make the danger of delay clear. It is that we may discover that we have run out of time. The God who gives us each day as a treasure will require an accounting. We will weep, and He will weep, if we have intended to repent and to serve Him in tomorrows which never came or have dreamt of yesterdays where the opportunity to act was past. This day is a precious gift of God. The thought “Someday I will†can be a thief of the opportunities of time and the blessings of eternity.
-- Henry B. Eyring -
I used to think that when I set out that doing the research was enough! But then the gaps would emerge that could only be filled by the imagination. And imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.
-- Hilary Mantel -
Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you.
-- Hilary Mantel -
Do not say, 'When I have leisure, I will study,' because you may never have leisure.
-- Hillel the Elder -
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Whatever things injure your eye you are anxious to remove; but things which affect your mind you defer.
-- Horace -
A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.
-- Hunter S. ThompsonSource : Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967”, p.119, Ballantine Books
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Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind
-- Isaac Pitman -
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'Never put off tomorrow what you can do today.' Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow's work slop into today's and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.
-- J. A. Spender -
The trouble is that you think you have time.
-- Jack Kornfield -
If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!
-- Jackie Collins -
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. MichenerSource : James A. Michener (2014). “The Drifters: A Novel”, p.528, Dial Press
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Procrastination is your body telling you you need to back off a bit and think more about what you are doing.
-- James Altucher -
I think the worst and most insidious procrastination for me is research. I will be looking for some bit of fact or figure to include in the novel, and before I know, I've wasted an entire morning delving into that subject matter without a word written.
-- James Rollins -
Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.
-- James SurowieckiSource : "Later" by James Surowiecki, www.newyorker.com. October 11, 2010.
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There is no dallying with God .
-- James UssherSource : James Ussher, Joseph Crabb, Stanley Gower (1660). “Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640: Of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crabb. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanly Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop. Now minister in Dorchester”, p.9
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I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
-- Jerome K. JeromeSource : Three Men in a Boat ch. 15 (1889)
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Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.
-- Jimmy Lyons -
That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it.
-- Joan Didion -
Procrastination always gives you something to look forward to.
-- Joan Konner -
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I have an advanced degree in procrastination and another one in paranoia.
-- Joanne Harris -
The procrastinator is not only indolent and weak, but commonly, false, too; most of the weak are false.
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
Pay now, play later; play now, pay later.
-- John C. Maxwell -
Go ahead and do things, the bigger the better, if your fundamentals are sound. Avoid procrastination. Do not quibble for an hour over things that might be decided in minutes. However, if the issue at stake is large, stay as long as the next man, but go ahead and do things.
-- John J. Raskob -
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Nothing so perilous as procrastination
-- John LylySource : John Lyly, Leah Scragg (2003). “John Lyly 'Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit' and 'Euphues and His England': An Annotated, Modern-Spelling Edition”, p.58, Manchester University Press
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Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making haste towards him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?
-- John Tillotson -
Peace is more than a lofty ideal. It is a practical principle that, with conscious effort, can become a normal part of our lives as we deal with matters both large and small. One habit that prevents inner peace is procrastination. It clutters our minds with unfinished business and makes us uneasy until we finish a task and get it out of the way.
-- Joseph B. Wirthlin -
Our good purposes foreslowed are become our tormentors upon our deathbed.
-- Joseph Hall -
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Don't put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.
-- Josh Billings -
One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools of our productivity are also the tools of our leisure, is to figure out how to make more useful those moments of procrastination when we're idling in front of our computer screens.
-- Joshua FoerSource : "How I learned a language in 22 hours" by Joshua Foer, www.theguardian.com. November 09, 2012.
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the obligation to express gratitude deepens with procrastination. The longer you wait, the more effusive must be the thanks.
-- Judith Martin -
My mother always told me I wouldn't amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, "Just wait."
-- Judy Tenuta -
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Procrastination is not Laziness", I tell him. "It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.
-- Julia Cameron -
Do not call procrastination laziness. Call it fear.
-- Julia Cameron -
I have a funny process : it’s called procrastination.
-- K. K. Barrett -
Reluctance to begin is quick to befriend procrastination. . . .
-- Kate MortonSource : Kate Morton (2010). “The Kate Morton Collection: The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden”, p.101, Simon and Schuster
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Procrastination is a common reaction to feeling overwhelmed or fear of failure. Instead of taking on too much at once and overwhelming yourself, break things down and take one small action step at a time.
-- Lauren Mackler -
If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.
-- Lee Iacocca -
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 -
The real difference between those who want to write and those that do, is that those that do get up every day and do it.
-- Leonard Wolf -