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Stoicism for Procrastination
Procrastination is usually fear wearing the costume of comfort. The Stoics favored action over endless deliberation: decide what a good person would do, then do it, today, because life is spent while we postpone.
Stoic ideas for this
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
Seneca · On the Shortness of Life
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
Seneca · On the Shortness of Life
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
“While we wait for life, life passes.”
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner does a thing appear than it is swept away and another takes its place.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Tomorrow is nothing, today is the thing.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are lavish.
Seneca · On the Shortness of Life
“We should meditate often on the shortness of time.”
Seneca · On the Shortness of Life
“Life is long if you know how to use it.”
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
“The greatest part of our life is spent in doing nothing.”
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Every day is a little life.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Study death always.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Do not postpone being good.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Do not waste the life you have, for it is not a rehearsal; it is the only performance you will give.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Let each day be treated as if it were a complete life.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
We are not given much, but we waste what we are given.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
It is never too late to begin to live well.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Begin now; the hour is already late, and the task is waiting.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations
Do not be afraid to live; the fear of living is worse than living itself.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend, and the most foolishly squandered.
Seneca · Letters from a Stoic
Put it into practice
A Stoic tool is only useful if you actually use it. Try this small loop the next time procrastination shows up:
- Name it plainly. Say what is happening without the story you are adding on top of it.
- Split what’s yours from what isn’t. Invest your energy only in the part you can actually choose.
- Do one small thing. A single deliberate action today beats a week of intending to.