On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “hell no” and 10 being “abso-Reaper-lutely,” to what extent do you agree with this statement?

“Why do today what I can put off until tomorrow?”

Does that statement jar your get-er-done sensibilities, or does it align quite neatly with your this-is-the-way-I-live-my-life-later ethos?

September 6^th is National Fight Procrastination Day, and if it wasn’t for the built-in deadline of it being a national day of note (almost as auspicious as National Nachos Day on November 6^th), I’d have procrastinated the writing of this article.

It would be more on brand for the National Fight Procrastination Day people to have a disclaimer on their special day:

September 6^th is National Fight Procrastination Day*
*Let’s just agree it’s in and around the 6^th, okay? The 6^th-ish. September 7^th will work just great because we’ll be putting it off, too. You can always let it roll around to September 6^th of next year, if that suits you better?

I am not here to admonish us for putting off the pesky little tasks and projects we typically procrastinate, like finishing starting that report due next Thursday, or getting your will in place (WOULD YOU JUST DO YOUR FREAKING WILL ALREADY?). I’m here to come down hard on our aliveness-zapping tendency to procrastinate the LIVING OF OUR LIVES.

Like, the whole enchilada of our lives.

(If I was talented enough to draw an enchilada I would include it here, with dreams and hopes and goals and hobbies and ambitions and plans and adventures coming out of the edges of the delicious Mexican dish.)

Okay fine—here’s my marginally successful stab at the drawing after all:

We do have a tendency to put off our dreams, don’t we? The things that might make our lives cool &/or better &/or feel astonishingly alive? The things we’d feel proud to pursue?

With the run-of-the-mill to-do list procrastinations, the act of “putting it off” provides a relief of some sort (albeit laced with dread): it feels delicious to put the TPS report off today, even though we know it’ll haunt us tomorrow. Deciding to do our taxes next weekend makes this weekend that much better, even if it does loom large in the distance. Immediate gratification is so reliably… gratifying.

But with long-range life procrastination—for the aforementioned dreams-and-desire-stuffed-enchilada-of-life—where is the relief?

• When we say, “I’ll pick the guitar up again soon,” where is the relief today?
• When we say, “I’ll start my consulting business in a few years,” where is the relief today?
• When we say, “I’ll take that trip to Iceland when I retire,” where is the relief today?
• When we say, “I’ll apply for that grad school program later,” where is the relief today?
• When we say, “I’ll get back on that dating app when work is less busy,” where is the relief today?
• When we say, “I’ll do that try-a-tri down the road,” where is the relief today?

If it’s a life-enhancing dream, why aren’t we driven to indulge in it today … not punt it to the mystical land of tomorrow?

I think we can call a spade a spade: some dreams can feel scary to pursue. The bigger the goal or desire, the more squeamish we can get about the risk we’re about to take. We could start the business and it could flop … we could train for the triathlon and come in last place … we could date a bunch of losers and end up with gonorrhea … so it’s safer to keep our most potent of dreams bottled up with the cork held tight, and live in the land of One Day I’ll Do It, For Sure, But Just Not Now. Rent is super cheap in the Land of Later.

Some of our deferred dreams aren’t that risky at all, though. Taking that oft-fantasized-about trip to Iceland isn’t likely to lead to failure or rejection, is it? But it takes work to plan and it might not live up to the hype, and that would feel fizzly. Playing the guitar isn’t that emotionally risky, but it might feel frustrating to not nail November Rain like you did in 1992 … and maybe it’s just easier to not try and turn on Netflix instead. (Netflix: the warm haven for procrastinators everywhere.)

When it comes to getting stuff done, we all know about the power of a deadline. How else do we get that report done? We know it’s due on Thursday, so we do it on Wednesday afternoon. How else do we get our taxes in? We know they’re due on April 15, so we begrudgingly get them in on time.

When it comes to deferring our dreams—not just our annoying to-do’s—what we need is a deadline. How else do we take that trip to Iceland? WE REMEMBER THAT WE’VE GOT ABOUT 4,000 MONDAYS TO LIVE—MANY OF THEM DOWN THE DRAIN ALREADY—AND SO WE BOOK THE TRIP BEFORE WE DIE. How else do we put in our application for school? WE CONTEMPLATE OUR TEMPORARY-NESS AND TAKE ACTION. How else do we go after any desire or goal that’s “optional”? WE TUNE INTO THE FACT THAT TOMORROW MIGHT NEVER ARRIVE.

Tick, tock … so goes the life clock. How many Mondays do you have left to live?

The word “deadline” couldn’t be more perfect. Let’s look at our 4,000^th Monday as The Looming Deadline. (We might get way more! But we might get waaaaay less and we pants-peeingly know it.)

It might feel daring and scary to dive into the deep end of a dream. But it might feel worse to get to the end and lament that we didn’t try to find love again/ get that MBA/ stay in an ice hotel/ do whatever could’ve made us feel undeniably alive.

So maybe we don’t have to dive into the deep end and tackle all of our bucket list items and ginormous goals at once (ugh, that sounds exhausting anyways). Research tells us that evenly-spaced deadlines are most effective, so why not segment our inevitable demise into smaller chunks?

Write out your List of Things I’d Love to Do in My Limited-Time-Only Life. Pick out your top 3 – 5 things. Then ask yourself, “what am I waiting for?”. When you come up with your reason, slap yourself in the face, and remind yourself that you are dying (slowly but surely, Honey Bunny) and ask yourself again, “what am I waiting for?”. If you’re waiting to not feel scared before going dream hunting, you’ll definitely die before that day comes. And so you do it anyways, so you can feel proud in your coffin.

Life’s too short to not try the tri. (Well, I have no business trying a triathlon, but you know what I mean.)
Life’s too short to not date again. (Unless you’re in a committed relationship, but you know what I mean.)
Life’s too short to not play your guitar again. (Unless you’re playing it unsolicitedly at a campfire with strangers trying to enjoy their evening, in which case you need to go home, Little Strummer Boy.)

William James aptly called procrastination “attitude’s natural assassin.” It’s high time we stopped assassinating our lives, right?

What

Are

You

Waiting

For?

Your deadline has been set. My deadline is in 1,812 Mondays. And you? What’re you going to get going on, Friend?