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Do you tend to put things off? These procrastination quotes will have you ready to take action now.
Of course, reading quotes instead of actually getting started on a task is a form of procrastination in itself, but after a few quotes I usually find myself ready to get working.
Here are the best procrastination quotes to get you started, and even a few that will leave you thinking a little delay isn’t always a bad thing.
Page Contents
Top 10 Procrastination Quotes
Action will destroy your procrastination.
Og Mandino
Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today.
Thomas Jefferson
PinTime wasted is existence; used is life.
Edward Young
Getting an idea should be like sitting on a pin; it should make you jump up and do something.
E. L. Simpson
The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.
Alexander Graham Bell
Begin while others are procrastinating. Work while others are wishing.
William Arthur Ward
PinPutting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.
George H. Lorimer
Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin.
Victor Kiam
Quotes about Procrastination
Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.
Napoleon Hill
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
Often greater risk is involved in postponement than in making a wrong decision.
Harry A. Hopf
In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt
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
The greatest amount of wasted time is time not getting started.
Dawson Trotman
PinProcrastination may not take up a lot of effort physically but without you knowing it, it takes over the mind.
Stephen Hall
Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait – The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.
Gene Hayden
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Abraham Lincoln
Anything worth putting off is worth abandoning altogether.
Epictetus
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.
Mark Twain
The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.
Thomas Sowell
Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
David Allen
PinA perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large.
Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going day in and day out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs.
Arnold Bennett
If you believe you can accomplish everything by “cramming” at the eleventh hour, by all means, don’t lift a finger now. But you may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining.
Max Brooks
We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
Erica Jong
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
How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.
Fred Brooks
Procrastination is the lazy cousin of fear. When we feel anxiety around an activity, we postpone it.
Noelle Hancock
Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait – The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.
Robert Anthony
Success is not obtained overnight. It comes in installments; you get a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow until the whole package is given out. The day you procrastinate, you lose that day’s success.
Israelmore Ayivor
PinA day can really slip by when you’re deliberately avoiding what you’re supposed to do.
Bill Watterson
By what right do I, who have wasted this day, make claims on tomorrow?
Alain Fournier
A primary reason people don’t do new things is because they want to do them perfectly – first time. It’s completely irrational, impractical, not workable – and yet, it’s how most people run their lives. It’s called The Perfection Syndrome.
Peter McWilliams and John-Roger
Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.
Peter Drucker
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Napoleon Bonaparte
You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.
Jerry West
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
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.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King
PinThe sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.
Proverbs 20:4, ESV
Often greater risk is involved in postponement than in making a wrong decision.
Harry A. Hopf
We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?
Buddha
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
William James
One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.
Vincent T. Foss
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
Leonardo da Vinci
Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.
Zig Ziglar
Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.
Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
Doing things at the last minute reminds us of the importance of doing things at the first minute.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Procrastination is like going to a fancy restaurant and filling up on bread and not leaving enough room for dinner.
Richie Norton
If you want to get ahead in life, I’ve found that perhaps the most useless word in the world is ‘tomorrow.’
José N. Harris
PinI remember reading somewhere about an organization called Procrastinators Anonymous. I think they had been in existence for some years but had never gotten around to having a meeting.
Unknown
You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last-minute panic.
Bill Watterson
If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.
Rita Mae Brown
One of these days is none of these days.
Unknown
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
How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never.’
Martin Luther
Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the master work. Now, I’m beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I’m happy at least that I didn’t wait twenty years.
Paulo Coelho
If you put off everything till you’re sure of it, you’ll never get anything done.
Norman Vincent Peale
PinYesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.
Kim Lyons
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
Don’t forget to check out our great Responsibility Quotes to stay on task when you feel like putting off what you need to do.
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’Conner
He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Horace
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment
Robert Benchley
We cannot put off living until we’re ready. Life is fired at us point blank.
JoseOrtegaY Gasset
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
Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing!
Donald Gardner
Following-through is the only thing that separates dreamers from people that accomplish great things.
Gene Hayden
PinWhen you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that in itself is a choice.
William James
Whoever observes the wind will not sow; and whoever regards the clouds will not reap.
Ecclesiastes 11:4, NRSV
Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
M. Scott Peck
Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.
Christopher Parker
Overcome Procrastination
If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem… break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time.
Robert Collier
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
Alexander Graham Bell
Often just by taking action, by doing something about the situation can relieve the stress and help correct the situation.
Catherine Pulsifer
To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
Sydney Smith
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
He who is begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.
Horace
PinDuring 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
Begin to weave and God will give you the thread.
German Proverb
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
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
Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find a good wing and climb up underneath it.
Frank C. Bucaro
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill
The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.
Unknown
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Jim Rohn
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 on the first one.
Mark Twain
The best way to get something done is to begin.
Unknown
PinHe who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.
Victor Hugo
Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
Michael Landon
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
Gen. George Patton
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
Dale Carnegie
Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
Peter Drucker
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank
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
The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.
Rita Emmett
Get started. Do something. Sign up for an aerobics class or go for a ride on your bicycle. Movement is the best remedy for procrastinating.
Anthony Herrera
PinYou can defeat procrastination all by yourself. You’re the one who started it and it’s also you who can stop it.
Samuel Andreas
One dayorday one. You decide.
Unknown
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
In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Teddy Roosevelt
We hope these procrastination quotes remind you that everyone finds it hard to focus sometimes.
But all it takes to turn things around is to get started! As the old saying goes, “the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, but the second-best time is NOW.”
It’s never too late to overcome your tendencies to procrastinate and accomplish incredible things in your life.
