"Tear yourself from delay." Horace.

Haste makes waste, right? Yeah, often. So care, deliberation, and preparation are the proper precursors of effective action. But procrastination is their unhelpful first cousin. And it’s procrastination that may just be the most common source of deferred dreams in the world.

Eastern philosophers tell us that it’s important in life to know when to act and when to refrain from acting. In some situations, patient non-action is exactly what’s called for. But where non-action is most needed, it's also most difficult. And where it’s easiest, it’s most often not advisable.

And that's the sure sign of procrastination. It's easy. It's effortless. And that's funny, because when you're procrastinating from what you know you should be doing, you often put monumental effort into doing things that don't need to be done.

I used to be like that. If I had a writing deadline, that would be the only time I would thoroughly clean my office, at a ridiculous level of clean that laboratory scientists could admire. And then I'd start washing cars. And walking dogs. Everything but writing.

It's easy not to do what you need to do because the world is full of other things you can do instead. Like reading blogs. But of course, I'd never want to discourage you from reading the right blogs! Just don't let your online life keep you from having an offline one and getting the right things, the real things, the necessary things done!

Are you putting off something that you really know you need to do? Don’t take any comfort from the philosophy of non-action. Take action instead. Overcome the inertia that's holding you back. Defeat the powers of procrastination. Tear yourself from delay. And do something, however small, toward your postponed goal.

Today. Yeah. Today