life on planet earth on Procrastination

Years ago I heard a motivational speaker encourage his audience to “eat that frog.” … it makes sense in its own way: Stop procrastinating and just do the thing you fear. Once you do that, everything e...

A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.”

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.

Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Holy God, we confess that we have been lukewarm about living our faith in Jesus each day. We put off to tomorrow what we know in our hearts you want to happen today. We go through the motions of relig...

Halloween is the beginning of the holiday shopping season. That’s for women. The beginning of the holiday shopping season for men is Christmas Eve.

Burnout is a state of mental or physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. The key word here is stress. There are several identifiable stages of burnout. (See if you have at least t...

Perfectionism makes you stay home, not take chances, and procrastinate on projects; it makes you think your life is worse than it is; it keeps you from being yourself; it stresses you out; it tells yo...

My temptation is to tackle everything at once, or nothing at all.

When we truly need to do is often what we most feel like avoiding.

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly t...

One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.

Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

Of course, speed has a role in the workplace. A deadline can focus the mind and spur us on to perform remarkable feats. The trouble is that many of us are permanently stuck in deadline mode, leaving l...

Extravagant wastefulness in time might prove the most productive thing you choose for yourself.

It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard t...

The result of worrying about the future is that you are crippling yourself in the present.

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

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.

There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by an...

Avoidance doesn’t solve anything; it merely serves as a temporary salve.

A primary resistance to a less hurried way of life—a resistance I find in myself and in others—is the belief that “I won’t be as productive” or that “I will fail to seize the opportunities God sets be...

[Maturity is] the ability to delay gratification. 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 t...

We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...

Our time is calibrated to a notion of efficiency that, in a single gesture, both demonizes waiting and preys on it as the opportune moment to occupy our attention.

[The one] who hurries delays the things of God.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

What you call “worry” . . . I call “preparation.”

The avoidance of pain is the beginning of all unhealthy behavior.