Procrastinators Quotes & Sayings

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't. — David Sedaris

If the Deseret News is careful not to offend [Nazi] Germany, and I gather that it is falling backwards on the attempt, it is my guess that first of all the Church is afraid of complete banishment. — Fawn M. Brodie

Mr Mowett,' called Stephen in the pause while the table was clearing to make room for the pudding, and pudding-wine - in this case Frontignan and Canary - was handing about, 'you were telling me about your publishers.'
'Yes, sir: I was about to say that they were the most hellish procrastinators - '
'Oh how dreadful,' cried Fanny. 'Do they go to - to special houses, or do they ... '
'He means they delay,' said Babbington.
'Oh. — Patrick O'Brian

I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way. — Emma Donoghue

In another study, chronic procrastinators who set a specific time to complete a task were eight times as likely to follow through. — Tony Schwartz

Talent is a wonderful asset to have but it has no time for procrastinators. — David Seller

When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not willing to do that, at least we should notice that we are not willing. The moment of disappointment in life is an incomparable gift that we receive many times a day if we're alert. This gift is always present in anyone's life, that moment when 'It's not the way I want it! — Charlotte Joko Beck

I ... practiced all the arts of apology, evasion, and invisibility, to which procrastinators must sooner or later be reduced. — Maria Edgeworth

My childhood was endless - from eight to 18 felt like hundreds of years. — Karl Lagerfeld

Procrastinators are pros at neglecting now and languishing later. — Ryan Lilly

We must go beyond the arrogance of human rights. We must go beyond the ignorance of civil rights. We must step into the reality of natural rights because all of the natural world has a right to existence and we are only a small part of it. There can be no trade-off. — John Trudell

There were perhaps fifteen students in varying stages of desperation, each moving with frenetic pace in the circle of hell reserved for procrastinators. — Lee Doty

The essence is that many procrastinators are "structured procrastinators," people who, like me, get a lot done as a way of not working on what they should ideally be working on. — John Perry

Procrastinators will weigh you down. Action is the prescription for moving forward. Action will eliminate boredom. Procrastinators are waiting, and they often create more excuses to continue waiting: It isn't the right time; I'm going to wait until it's sunny outside; I got up late; I called them and they didn't pick up the phone; they didn't reply to my email. Procrastinators are going nowhere. Do not let them impede your journey to success. — Steve Harvey

Nothing focuses attention like a real deadline. If you are in a field where life and death, or having a job or not having a job, depends on not missing deadlines, you need to learn to manipulate yourself to meet them; often a good way of doing this is teaming up with non-procrastinators. — John Perry

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 Surowiecki

Procrastinators may resemble Sprinters, because they too tend to finish only when they're against a deadline, but the two types are quite different. Sprinters choose to work at the last minute because the pressure of a deadline clarifies their thoughts; Procrastinators hate last-minute pressure and wish they could force themselves to work before the deadline looms. Unlike Sprinters, Procrastinators often agonize about the work they're not doing, which makes it hard for them to do anything fun or meaningful with their time. They may rush around doing busywork as a way to avoid doing what they know they have to do. — Gretchen Rubin

The fantasy of doing a task perfectly is common with procrastinators; they set the bar for success very high. Then they are afraid to approach it. As the deadline approaches, they must set the bar lower. — John Perry

Up and down the lanes, the last unevacuated townspeople wake, groan, sigh. Spinsters, prostitutes, men over sixty. Procrastinators, collaborators, disbelievers, drunks. Nuns of every order. The poor. The stubborn. The blind. — Anthony Doerr

Hold on there, pal. Why don't you take a deep breath and tell me what you know. And keep in mind most of us prefer sentences over stream-of-consciousness word vomit. — Alex P. Berg

Forward thinkers create a plan, focus on the plan, and execute the plan. Procrastinators just talk about the plan, get distracted with the minor things and postpone the plan. - We don't need time management, we need life management with purpose. — Farshad Asl

As a survival-happy species, our successes are calculated in the number of years we have extended our lives, with the reduction of suffering being only incidental to this aim. To stay alive under almost any circumstances is a sickness with us. Nothing could be more unhealthy than to "watch one's health" as a means of stalling death. The lengths we will go as procrastinators of that last gasp only demonstrate a morbid dread of that event. By contrast, our fear of suffering is deficient. — Thomas Ligotti

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

I was surprised by how many people think of themselves as procrastinators, but, like me, seem to get a lot done anyway. — John Perry

Where is this time to waste? It's gone, Dry and brittle the minutes broke free from the tree of time. Now the earth eats the future in sixty second spoonfuls As fast as it can leaving nothing for procrastinators. Nothing for writer's block to be hammered to. Nothing for when healing is not complete and the bed Is of no comfort nor rest. — Kenyatta Garcia

Over the years, I developed a theory about why writers are such procrastinators: We were too good in English class. This sounds crazy, but hear me out. — Megan McArdle

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be, by definition, the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being. — John Perry