Procrastination Time Quotes & Sayings

Indulge in procrastination, and in time yon will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it. — Charles Buxton

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

There are those who fear the sunset, worried they will never see light again. There are those who ignore the sunrise, squandering dawn, believing they will never run out of daylight. And then there are those who have learned to live in the sun's warmth, gauging time by its positions, thankful at night that the day happened. Be aware of time. Use it wisely. Be thankful for the light allotted. — Richelle E. Goodrich

THE MISCONCEPTION: You procrastinate because you are lazy and can't manage your time well. THE TRUTH: Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking. — David McRaney

It's time to stop following your dreams and time to start chasing them! — Habeeb Akande

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. And all my efforts were doomed, because already drinking hadn't made me feel good in years. — Heather King

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no delay, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. — Philip Dormer Stanhope

God will not allow you to add the words "next time" to now faith. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

Think of the most discouraging thing that you are currently carrying or the biggest project you can't seem to tackle. Forget about how it happened, forget about how you got there, just look at the clock, and before that number changes, do one little thing to make it better. After you do, enjoy your moment of victory, and then do it again. In less than the time it takes you to blink, the past will burden you no more. — Dan Pearce

When the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. — Andrew Jackson

The assumption of time is one of humanity's greatest follies. We tell ourselves that there's always tomorrow, when we can no more predict tomorrow than we can the weather. Procrastination is the thief of dreams. — Richard Paul Evans

There's nothing wrong with procrastination. Or is there? I'll leave it to you to decide, but only if you have the time. — Craig Brown

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. — Marthe Troly-Curtin

Time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt. — Edward Young

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. — Seneca The Younger

I know love is begun by time,
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.
And nothing is at a like goodness still.
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,
We should do when we would, for this "would" changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents.
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing. — William Shakespeare

You made delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again. — Benjamin Franklin

Then he went into the dining room, consulting his watch. It was ten thirty already. More than half the morning was gone. More than half the time for sitting and trying to write the prose that would make people sit up and gasp. It happened that way more often now than he would even admit to himself. Sleeping late, making up errands, doing anything to forestall the terrible moment when he must sit down before his typewriter and try to wrench some harvest from the growing desert of his mind. ("Mad House") — Richard Matheson

I think there is clearly a connection between free time and procrastination. The more you have of the former, all things being equal, the more likely you are to procrastinate. — James Surowiecki

Unfinished business is our worst business. Perpetual procrastination must yield to perceptive preparation. Today we have a little more time to bless others-time to be kinder, more compassionate, quicker to thank and slower to scold, more generous in sharing, more gracious in caring. — Russell M. Nelson

The problem with procrastination is it's been around since the beginning of time it seems. — Stephen Richards

Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes. — Bill Cosby

It sometimes seems that we live as if we wonder when life is going to begin. It isn't always clear just what we are waiting for, but some of us sometimes persist in waiting so long that life slips by - finding us still waiting for something that has been going on all the time ... This is the life in which the work of this life is to be done. Today is as much a part of eternity as any day a thousand years ago or as will be any day a thousand years hence. This is it, whether we are thrilled or disappointed, busy or bored! This is life, and it is passing. — Richard L. Evans

Improvement is always on the schedule for tomorrow. Change is always taking place some time in the future. It's human nature. — Dan Pearce

Being overwhelmed can lead to procrastination, which often leads to being chronically late for deadlines and appointments. Being chronically late can take a toll on your self-esteem and damage your relationships. You've probably heard your whole life that you are uncaring, selfish, immature, or worse. Executive function impairment is tied directly to a distorted sense of time and a struggle to manage it. — Terry Matlen

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 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

We all do have a vision in life and we all wish to achieve something in life. We all ought to note that vision is there for everyone but, achievement is there for someone! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow. It eliminates the vice of procrastination, the sin of postponement, failed communications, failed communions. This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters. meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked. This feeling has become a rarity, and rarer every day now that we have reached a hastier and more superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephones, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision. — Anais Nin

Killing for pleasure is wrong and should be banned. Fox hunting, stag hunting and hare coursing are moral issues. It is time that we stood up for morality. The commandment Thou shall not kill may be hedged with exceptions.Thou shall not kill for pleasure is not; it is a commandment for the 21st century and it is time that we respected it unambiguously, without prevarication and without procrastination. — Lyndon Harrison, Baron Harrison

Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, to everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging Time along by force, and not he us. — Walter Savage Landor

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

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. — Dalai Lama

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

How often do you find yourself saying, "In a minute", "I'll get to it" or "Tomorrow's good enough" and every other possible excuse in the book? Compare it with how often you decide it's got to be done, so let's get on and do it! That should tell you just how serious your procrastinating problem really is. — Stephen Richards

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends. — William Shakespeare

The problem with spiritual procrastination is the uncertain time of the deadline. — Kevin Thoman

Do not procrastinate. Someone has said that procrastination is the thief of time. Actually, procrastination is much more. It is the thief of our self-respect. It nags at us and spoils our fun. It deprives us of the fullest realization of our ambitions and hopes. — Thomas S. Monson

Don't be lazy. Hard work brings happiness. There is no other time to avoid being a lazy. Take that decision now. Kick laziness out. — Israelmore Ayivor

The most dangerous way we sabotage ourselves is by waiting for the perfect moment to begin. Nothing works perfectly the first time, or the first fifty times. Everything has a learning curve. The beginning is just that - a beginning. Surrender your desire to do it flawlessly on the first try. It's not possible. Learn to learn. Learn to fail. Learn to learn from failing. And begin today. Begin now. Stop waiting. — Vironika Tugaleva

Now-people" are winners; they say "now" and they do it "now"! Do not delay. — Israelmore Ayivor

Yesterday is a cancelled check;
Tomorrow is a promissory note;
Today is the only cash you have,
so spend it wisely. — Kim Lyons

Eventually, time takes care of everything. The trouble with procrastination is that people give up on it too soon. — Robert Breault

Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again. — Marcus Aurelius

Our lack of focus is our primary problem and the source of many of our difficulties, like procrastination, trouble setting priorities, trouble dealing with time, trouble finishing projects, perfectionism, and the inevitable demoralization. — Douglas A. Puryear

The time to begin most things is ten years ago. — Mignon McLaughlin

If you fail to believe you will procrastinate or become idealustic about how awesome you are at working hard and managing your time, you never develop a strategy for outmaneuvering your own weakness. — David McRaney

This faith in time's infinite patience triggers procrastination. — Anonymous

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. — Charles Dickens

Every time we look at the clock, we must learn to feel a sense of urgency. We must learn to realize that "now" is happening and will very soon be gone. We must look at the digits on the display and be overcome with an urge to do something before those digits change. Before "now" slips through our fingers. We must look at the ink on the calendar and see an immediate opportunity to do something wonderful, incredible, or beautiful.
It's that simple. We need to change our thinking from "when the number changes" to "before the number changes". — Dan Pearce

You always have time for the things you put first. — Anonymous

Every minute we waste in frustration over a task that seems overwhelming is a minute subtracted from the time we've allotted to enjoy life. — Marc Mancini

I used to go online all the time, and then I had to stop myself ... because I'm a writer, and it's like: to have a procrastination tool, like, within my computer ... it was just getting too hairy. — Mike White

Begin things today so that they can finish tomorrow — Moonish Sood

T just seemed as if she were marking time while life rocketed past. — Soheir Khashoggi

Dream on it, think on it, ink on it, speak on it ... then proceed to bring on it. Fulfillment is ordered to find you. Shine time! — T.F. Hodge

Like most such tasks, cooking vegetables involves investing large amounts of time in deep thought and procrastination and a relatively small amount of time actually doing the job. — Richard David Feinman

Procrastination expert Rita Emmett explains: "The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself. — Barbara Oakley

Many writers-in-waiting spend a lot of time avoiding the work at hand. The most common way to avoid writing is by procrastination. This is the writer's greatest enemy. There is little to say about it except that once you decide to write every day, you must make yourself sit at the desk or table for the required period whether or not you are putting down words. Make yourself take the time even if the hours seem fruitless. Ideally, after a few days or weeks of being chained to the desk, you will submit to the story that must be told. — Walter Mosley

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

Your problems is that you think you have time — Carlos Castaneda

Procrastination and excuses are sour spices that spoil the sweet taste of an effective work. They must hence, not be prompted under desire, partly because they are strictly time-stripping and also because they have no known essence. — Israelmore Ayivor

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood - it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." Martin Luther King, Jr. — Steven Pressfield

Today and tomorrow is an illusion, days are all joined together, and if you are waiting for your time, you are wasting your time. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Once heard someone explain thoughts as this: we, as human beings, think that we're thinking. Not true. Most of the time, we're remembering. We're re-living memories. We're running familiar patterns and loops in our head. For happiness, for procrastination, for sadness. Fears, hopes, dreams, desires. We have loops for everything. — Kamal Ravikant

Any time we have projects that we haven't begun or completed, they drain energy. — Arianna Huffington

As a writer, I need an enormous amount of time alone. Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write. Having anybody watching that or attempting to share it with me would be grisly. — Paul Rudnick

Everything we think we know, everything we think we see, everything we believe we feel, taste, smell, or hear, everything we "remember" (our pasts), everything we want to happen (our futures), everything that has ever existed or will ever exist, only exists right now. All of these things are nothing more than electric signals being passed through our brains and bodies, right now. It is all energy flowing through us right now. "The past" exists only in our minds. We are the ones who bring it into reality. We are the ones who bring it into the present. We are the ones who make it "real". — Dan Pearce

The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started. — Dawson Trotman

Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late. — Stephen Richards

Procrastination has been a boon to my sobriety. I keep thinking I'd like to go out and get really trashed some night--but not tonight. It's really a variant of "One Step at a Time. — Rob Dinsmoor

Ever feel like you're always winding up and never throwing it out? You might blame it on perfectionism or procrastination or preparation. You may even call it prudent. But whatever it is...IT'S NOT WORKING. I call this phenomenon "petrified performance." Where you're busy, busy, busy (on the wrong activities or the right activities for too long), and never accomplishing the idea or task you set out to do. You're stuck. Like a tree that once was lively is now dead and immovable like a stone. What once was a fluid idea is now frozen in time. How do you overcome petrified performance? With practice, silly. Everything you do should be considered a "project" because projects have a beginning and an end with a timeline. No more dreaming. Wake up and put those dreams to work by putting the steps necessary to make them happen on the calendar. Are you willing to practice? That's my prescription. — Richie Norton

Excellence can be achieved only today - not yesterday or tomorrow, because they do not exist in the present moment. Today is the only day you have to flex your talents and maximize your enjoyment. Your challenge is to win in all aspects of life. To reach that goal, you need to set yourself up for success by winning one day at a time. Procrastination is no match for a champion. — Jim Afremow

We can be of so much service to others in many thou-shalt ways. Of course, the problem is that rendering such service takes time, and we are all so busy. Some situations may call for service that somehow seems to be beneath us. Besides, we have other things to do. The thou shalts are so convenient to put off. Who will notice the procrastination anyway? After all, we are not robbing a bank. Or are there forms of withholding that constitute stealing? — Neal A. Maxwell

Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow," and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are a member of the Universe, that you are born of Nature itself, and to know that a limit has been set to your time. Use every moment wisely, to perceive your inner refulgence, or 'twill be gone and nevermore within your reach. — Marcus Aurelius

Do you write every day?'
'Oh, no. Oh, I sort of try. I don't work very hard, really. Really I'm on vacation. All the time. Or you could say I work all the time, too. It comes to the same thing.' He'd said all this before, to others; he wondered if he'd said it to her. 'It's like weekend homework. Remember? There wasn't ever a time you absolutely had to do it - there was always Saturday, then Sunday - but then there wasn't ever a time when it wasn't there to do, too.'
'How awful.' ("Novelty") — John Crowley

Everyone who is taken by death asks for more time, while everyone who still has time makes excuses for procrastination. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Stop killing and wasting time. Get something done today — Sunday Adelaja

Those who would live beyond their nature-given span lose their framework, and with it lose a proper sense of relationship to those who are younger, gaining only the resentment of youth for encroaching on its careers and resources. The fact that there is a limited right time to do the rewarding things in our lives is what creates the urgency to do them. Otherwise, we might stagnate in procrastination. The very fact that at our backs, as the poet cautions his coy mistress, we "always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near" enhances the world and makes the time priceless. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Do what you know needs to be done. — Lynda A. Calder

It's always been important for writers to be disciplined but now even more so. In addition to the traditional displacement activities like cleaning the fridge or eating cake writers are faced with a plethora of online possibilities (some of which may be professionally worthwhile as well as interesting and fun). As a writer it's important to learn how to focus so you can do both as and when you need to. — Sara Sheridan

A credit card allows you transcend time. For it allows you to put off until tomorrow what you bought today, while you are still paying what you bought yesterday. — Robert Morrissette

This is the day the Lord himself has made! Do something on it before it begins to fade! Do something you have said! Do it before it's time for bed! — Israelmore Ayivor

One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not to be done at all. — Brian Tracy

Both positive and negative thinking are contagious. — Stephen Richards

Tempted to type meaningless twaddle all the time on Twitter ... with alliteration, no less! — E.A. Bucchianeri

Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters. — Pandora Poikilos

Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you. — Paulo Coelho

Procrastination is, as Edward Young said in about sixteen ninety-five, the thief of time. — Patrick Taylor

The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. — Lord Chesterfield

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 scene — Edward Young

What is the definition of procrastination? It means: I can feel within my Energy sensor that this action is not in perfect alignment at this time. — Esther Hicks

We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words 'Too Late'. — Martin Luther King Jr.

He saw it for the first time: on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered e-mails, and in the hovel he called home there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, and unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply and lovers he had not owned up to. — Ian McEwan

I suggested that he write from 11:00 to 1:00 every weekday. During that time, he was to write or do nothing. No email; no calls; no research; no clearing off a desk; no hanging out with Jack, my adorable, three-year-old, train-obsessed nephew. Write, or stare out the window. "Remember," I added, "working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination. You want to use your writing time for writing only. Nothing else, including no other kinds of work. — Gretchen Rubin

Nobody is responsible for your sorrows and poverty, not even the devil. It is the work of the enemies of time that lives in some men, and their names are, 'Laziness and Procrastination'. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Procrastination at the start and sometimes during the project meant there wasn't time to execute the plans well enough. — Graham Speechley

A Gift for You
I send you ...
A cottage retreat on a hill in Ireland. This cottage is filled with fresh flowers, art supplies, and a double-wide chaise lounge in front of a wood-burning fireplace. There is a cabinet near the front door, where your favorite meals appear, several times a day. Desserts are plentiful and calorie free. The closet is stocked with colorful robes and pajamas, and a painting in the bedroom slides aside to reveal a plasma television screen with every movie you've ever wanted to watch. A wooden mailbox at the end of the lane is filled daily with beguiling invitations to tea parties, horse-and-carriage rides, theatrical performances, and violin concerts. There is no obligation or need to respond.
You sleep deeply and peacefully each night, and feel profoundly healthy. This cottage is yours to return to at any time. — SARK

Don't waste time waiting for opportunity to surface; it may never happen that way. Spend time to create one and many more will unfold in series! — Israelmore Ayivor

The main factors that sponsor the abuse of time include procrastination and excuses. Procrastination makes you to shift a task that you can do now into the unseen future; excuses are the reasons why you shift that task. — Israelmore Ayivor

At twenty years old, Michael had vague plans to make changes in his life, but turning blue whilst stood in a walk-in bath in an old people's home wasn't one of them. Usually boys of his age might consider changes along the lines of smoking less grass at home, at college or at work, to be a good idea. Or maybe spending less time on that solitary pursuit common to men of his age across the globe. Enjoyable though he found it, he was going to cut back on the procrastination, but that was going to have to wait. — Dylan Perry