Do It Now
This is a good motto for all who are inclined to be dilatory or unpunctual: “Do it now!” Doing things at the right time is the essence of punctuality; and punctuality is just the opposite of procrastination, which means “putting off till to-morrow”. Procrastination is always a fault — a fault of laziness and dilatoriness ; for it always means putting off to tomorrow what ought to be done to-day.
If it is not firmly checked, procrastination soon grows into a bad habit. It may be due to laziness, or to the illusion that there will be plenty of time in the future to do all we have to do. The lazy man consoles himself that he will do some day. As the Negro said, “Next week’s going to be a mighty busy time”. A Spanish proverb runs, “To-morrow is often the busiest day in the week.” But for lazy folks, to-morrow and next week never come.
That we shall have more time to-morrow is an illusion. To-morrow will have its own work to be done ; and there will be no time to do yesterday’s work as well. Every time we put off the work we ought to do to-day, we are piling up an accumulation of work for some to-morrow ; and we shall at last find that the arrears of work undone are too big to be overtaken. So, in the end, “lazy folks take the most pains”.
“Procrastination”, it is said, “is the thief of time”. We have only a limited amount of time at our disposal ; and every hour we waste in idleness is “stolen” from our little stock by that thief, procrastination. Time wasted is lost.
The lazy man says in his heart, “Never do to-day what you can put off to to-morrow”; or even, “Never put off to to-morrow what you can put off to the day after to-morrow”. But the wise man takes the old proverb as his motto . “Never put off to to-morrow what you can do to-day”. A very hard-worked businessman, when asked how he got through all the work he did, said, “I always keep a clear table”. He meant that, however late it was, he always cleared off all the day’s correspondence before he left his office, never leaving over any letters for the next day. This is a sound idea, and worthy of adoption. So, let your motto be, “Do it NOW!”
