66 Procrastination Quotes To Inspire

Procrastination is a common struggle that many of us face, preventing us from achieving our goals and fulfilling our potential. Yet, the wisdom of those who have faced and overcome this challenge can serve as a beacon of inspiration. In this collection, we've curated the top 66 procrastination quotes that will motivate you to push past hesitation and take action. Whether you're looking for a quick burst of motivation or a new perspective on productivity, these quotes are here to inspire you to make the most of every moment. Dive in and let these powerful words propel you towards achieving your best self.

1. “I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.” - Margaret Mitchell

2. “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” - Mark Twain

3. “Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” - Charles Dickens

4. “Never postpone until tomorrow what you can postpone until the day after.” - Raoul Wallenberg

5. “Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today.” - Aaron Burr

6. “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” - Marthe Troly-Curtin

7. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” - Abraham Lincoln

8. “Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.” - Denis Waitley

9. “Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today.” - Holbrook Jackson

10. “Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today.” - Benjamin Franklin

11. “The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.” - Alan Dean Foster

12. “the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.” - Dale Carnegie

13. “You guys like to tell jokes and giggle and kid around, huh? Giggling like a bunch of young broads in a school yard. Well, let me tell you a joke: Five guys sitting in a bull pen, San Quentin. Wondering how the fuck they got there. What'd we do wrong? What should we've done? What didn't we do? It's your fault, my fault, his fault. All that bullshit. Finally, someone comes up with the idea, wait a minute, while we were planning this caper, all we did was sit around and tell fucking jokes. Got the message?” - Quentin Tarantino

14. “Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” - Michael Landon Jr.

15. “Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.” - James Surowiecki

16. “If you choose to not deal with an issue,then you give up your right of control over the issue and it will select the path of least resistance.” - Susan Del Gatto

17. “But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still - very wonderful things have happened!” - George Eliot

18. “I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions": "Can't do it now." "Then put it on hold." This is one's strategy for coping with old age, and with death--because one can't die with so many obligations in storage. Our clever species, so fertile and resourceful in denying its weaknesses.” - Saul Bellow

19. “Why Dream?Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity as well as love, hope, ecstasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees.The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage fully, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

20. “Identifying Your DreamSome people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

21. “Inside CriticsThe critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots. You might be told by the critics that you're too fat, too old, too young, not intelligent enough, a quitter, not logical, prone to try too many things...It's all balderdash!Some elements of these may be true, and it's completely up to you how they affect you. Inside critics are really just trying to protect you. You can:Learn to dialogue with them.Give them new jobs.Turn them into allies.You can also dismantle/exterminate them.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

22. “Inside" ChildrenInside each of us are the children we were at each developmental stage. With regard to our creative dreams, these inside children can prevent us from living them by "acting out" in order to try to get our attention. Your inner 5-year-old is not going to patiently wait as you learn intricate metalworking techniques or study impressionist painting. Yet, your inner 10-year-old may be perfectly suited to learn and observe new skills.What's really needed is parenting of these inside children so that we bring them to age-appropriate activities.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

23. “Our creative dreams are subject to grudge-holding when we decide that other people somehow have made their dreams real and we have not.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

24. “A Gift for YouI send you...A cottage retreat on a hill in Ireland. This cottage is filled with fresh flowers, art supplies, and a double-wide chaise lounge in front of a wood-burning fireplace. There is a cabinet near the front door, where your favorite meals appear, several times a day. Desserts are plentiful and calorie free. The closet is stocked with colorful robes and pajamas, and a painting in the bedroom slides aside to reveal a plasma television screen with every movie you've ever wanted to watch. A wooden mailbox at the end of the lane is filled daily with beguiling invitations to tea parties, horse-and-carriage rides, theatrical performances, and violin concerts. There is no obligation or need to respond. You sleep deeply and peacefully each night, and feel profoundly healthy. This cottage is yours to return to at any time. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

25. “Building your "dream life" is filled with things that can feel like the opposite of a dream:MistakesDelaysStarting overFailureThe building part is actually more of a rebuilding that is a continual process. The building is not linear in nature but far more interesting. You might start a creative dream, take the "next step", and find yourself completely bored, dissatisfied, or just not inspired. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

26. “Initially, I feel expansive when I try something new, and then contract as soon as I encounter difficulty or the unknown. I am learning to experiment with my tolerance of difficulty and the not knowing, in order to go further with my creative dreams.Whenever I experience contraction, I explore it by asking, "Where did I stop and why?" Building a creative dream life is not just about achieving, succeeding, or "meeting goals." It is also about floundering, stumbling, tripping and failing. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

27. “Absolutely not. I'm an expert in procrastination, but the last thing I want you to think is that I'm incompetent, too. Because I'm actually pretty good at what I do.” - Nicholas Sparks

28. “My mother always told me I wouldn't amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, 'Just wait.” - Judy Tenuta

29. “Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow. I know that I should stop it. In fact, I will--tomorrow” - Gloria Pitzer

30. “Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters.” - Pandora Poikilos

31. “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” - Leonardo da Vinci

32. “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

33. “If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.” - Hilary Mantel

34. “Procrastination is also a subtle act of corruption – it corrupts valuable time” - Dr. Amit Abraham

35. “The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.” - Stephen King

36. “Do you write every day?' 'Oh, no. Oh, I sort of try. I don't work very hard, really. Really I'm on vacation. All the time. Or you could say I work all the time, too. It comes to the same thing.' He'd said all this before, to others; he wondered if he'd said it to her. 'It's like weekend homework. Remember? There wasn't ever a time you absolutely had to do it - there was always Saturday, then Sunday - but then there wasn't ever a time when it wasn't there to do, too.' 'How awful.' ("Novelty")” - John Crowley

37. “Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness in the old.” - Oscar Wilde

38. “Had I been less firmly resolved upon settling down definitively to work, I should perhaps have made an effort to begin at once. But since my resolution was explicit, since within twenty-four hours, in the empty frame of the following day where everything was so well-arranged because I myself was not yet in it, my good intention would be realized without difficulty, it was better not to start on an evening when I felt ill-prepared. The following days were not, alas, to prove more propitious. But I was reasonable. It would have been puerile, on the part of one who had waited now for years, not to put up with a postponement of two or three days. Confident that by the day after tomorrow I should have written several pages, I said not a word more to my parents of my decision; I preferred to remain patient and then to bring to a convinced and comforted grandmother a sample of work that was already under way. Unfortunately the next day was not that vast, extraneous expanse of time to which I had feverishly looked forward. When it drew to a close, my laziness and my painful struggle to overcome certain internal obstacles had simply lasted twenty-four hours longer. And at the end of several days, my plans not having matured, I had no longer the same hope that they would be realized at once, and hence no longer the heart to subordinate everything else to their realization: I began once again to keep late hours...” - Marcel Proust

39. “The problem with procrastination is it’s been around since the beginning of time it seems.” - Stephen Richards

40. “How often do you find yourself saying, “In a minute”, “I’ll get to it” or “Tomorrow’s good enough” and every other possible excuse in the book? Compare it with how often you decide it’s got to be done, so let’s get on and do it! That should tell you just how serious your procrastinating problem really is.” - Stephen Richards

41. “Both positive and negative thinking are contagious.” - Stephen Richards

42. “You can put off your dreams, your desires, your careers, your farms. You can avoid your responsibilities, obligations, promises, and sovereign rights. But any person who wants to make music, and doesn't, is a goddamned fool.” - Jenna Woginrich

43. “You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

44. “Put it off for a bit. All life is putting off. Well, not entirely.” - Anthony Burgess

45. “The Queen, bless her heart, has cultivated procrastination to a degree which is really an art--when one is vexed, as I fear I often am, one should recall that the Bowes Lyons are the laziest family in the world. Against this reflection it becomes remarkable that she accomplishes so much.” - Arthur Penn

46. “A man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.” - George Eliot

47. “This idea comes to you, you can see it, but to accomplish it you need what I call a "setup." For example, you may need a working shop or a working painting studio. You may beed a working music studio. Or a computer room where you can write something. It's crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen. If you don't have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Overtime, it will go away. You didn't filfill it--and that's just a heartache.” - David Lynch

48. “Look, my dad has a saying - we'll burn that bridge when get to it. OK? You get it? Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.” - Barry Lyga

49. “To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.” - Randy Alcorn

50. “Let's take care of the little things while they're still little.” - John G. Miller

51. “If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” - Olin Miller

52. “During the act of making something, I experience a kind of blissful absence of the self and a loss of time. When I am done, I return to both feeling as restored as if I had been on a trip. I almost never get this feeling any other way. I once spent sixteen hours making 150 wedding invitations by hand and was not for one instance of that time tempted to eat or look at my watch. By contrast, if seated at the computer, I check my email conservatively 30,000 times a day. When I am writing, I must have a snack, call a friend, or abuse myself every ten minutes. I used to think that this was nothing more than the difference between those things we do for love and those we do for money. But that can't be the whole story. I didn't always write for a living, and even back when it was my most fondly held dream to one day be able to do so, writing was always difficult. Writing is like pulling teeth. From my dick.” - David Rakoff

53. “Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more willpower or drive, but because they know productivity is a game played against a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty that can never be excised from the soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push-ups.” - David McRaney

54. “If and perhaps.... The language of procrastination and uncertainty. That's just people looking to justify their own lack of action.” - John Flanagan

55. “With no sums to keep his conscience at bay, the black book loomed large, creeping into his line of sight.He scanned the room for something else to do. The harness still needed work. And he'd been meaning to fix that rickety shelf since last month. The pipe on his potbellied stove was dented. The windowsill needed dusting.Dusting?J.T. braced his arms on the desk and pressed his forehead into the heels of his hands.” - Karen Witemeyer

56. “Don't try to leave for there's so very much to do, and you still have over eight hundred years to go on the first job.' 'But why do only unimportant things?' 'Think of all the trouble it saves. If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing.” - Norton Juster

57. “Procrastination is not Laziness", I tell him. "It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.” - Julia Cameron

58. “We must remember balance and moderation. Patience can be spiritually enriching and virtuous… but when taken in excess, it turns to procrastination, the poison of inaction.” - Steve Maraboli

59. “Life always begins with one step outside of your comfort zone.” - Shannon L. Alder

60. “Nothing says work efficiency like panic mode.” - Don Roff

61. “How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

62. “Mr Mowett,' called Stephen in the pause while the table was clearing to make room for the pudding, and pudding-wine—in this case Frontignan and Canary—was handing about, 'you were telling me about your publishers.'    'Yes, sir: I was about to say that they were the most hellish procrastinators—'    'Oh how dreadful,' cried Fanny. 'Do they go to—to special houses, or do they ...'    'He means they delay,' said Babbington.    'Oh.” - Patrick O'Brian

63. “Let's make progress, not excuses.” - Justin Cotillard

64. “No more excuses or procrastination! Stop allowing your days to be stolen by busy nothingness and take calculated steps towards your goals.” - Steve Maraboli

65. “Do what you know needs to be done.” - Lynda A. Calder

66. “The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second we can turn the tables on Resistance.This second, we can sit down and do our work.” - Steven Pressfield