Category » Time Management

What You Can Do Today, Do Yesterday

Do not Postpone

Well, actually, you cannot do yesterday what you need to do today.

What I really mean is that never postpone anything for another day. Often, what you don’t do right now you will never do, since the momentum passes and the opportunity fades away.

When you postpone doing things over and again, you develop the habit of procrastination.

Do not Postpone Doing Things

Let me give you a few examples of postponement:

You promise your child a certain amount of pocket money, but you don’t give him the money right away, because you don’t have this amount in your purse.

Now, suppose you do not have the time to go to your bank or to an ATM for several days, and you forget about your promise.

After a few days, your child does something naughty, and you want to punish him.

You tell him that you won’t give him the money you promised, but only after he is punished.

Now, your child will be angry at you, because you promised him something, and you didn’t fulfill your promise.

He learned from you that promises are just words.

  • You feel bad about the whole matter.
  • If you gave him the money earlier, at the time you made him the promise, you would have saved all this problem.

Here Are a Few More Examples

  • You feel it is chilly, but being busy, you don’t want to stop what you are doing and go get a coat to wear, and you get a cold, which you could have avoided.
  • Someone promises you a job and tells you to come right now, but you go meet him a few days later. By then, the job has already been given to someone else.
  • You want to go on a vacation and travel somewhere, but keep postponing, due to a million reasons. This would probably make you feel frustrated and unhappy, but in the meantime, you might also lose your desire to travel.
  • If you finally decide on a certain date to take the vacation you might discover that you cannot do so, because your boss or a colleague will be on a vacation at that exact time, or because you already spent the money on other things.

If you procrastinate and postpone you might discover that it’s too late.

When there is an opportunity, when a promise is made, when a decision has been reached, it has to be executed right now.

Often, there is a strong motivation, there is the desire, and there are people who want to help.

However, if you procrastinate, and it doesn’t matter whether the reason for procrastination is justified or not, you lose the momentum, and you lose the opportunity.

Doing things right now might need a little willpower and self-discipline.

This might not be easy and there might be inner resistance, but with a little inner strength and resolution, you can replace the habit of procrastination with the habit of taking immediate action.

If you want to be a doer, achieve goals, or improve your life, you need to stop procrastinating.

What skill can help you stop postponing and procrastinating? Willpower and self discipline.

Whatever you can do today, do today, not tomorrow. Procrastination is not an option.