Looking for motivational quotes to stop procrastination? We have rounded up the best list of procrastination quotes, sayings, captions, and status messages (with images and pictures) to get you focused and work hard.
Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing tasks or activities, often to the detriment of one’s own goals, productivity, and well-being.
It is a common behavior that many people struggle with, and there have been countless quotes and sayings about the subject throughout history.
We all procrastinate from time to time with our delay tactics. But sometimes, we just can’t help but delay finishing that uncompleted task due to laziness, irritability, or lack of focus.
Related: Grind And Hustle Quotes
And eventually, that avoided work, meeting, chore, obligation, appointment, or seemingly impossible work task can just wait until tomorrow…or the day after tomorrow…right?
Whenever there’s something that needs to be done – whether it’s big or small, important or irrelevant needs to be completed now. Take action now and get things done to stop the habit of procrastination.
Top 10 Procrastination Quotes
- “Procrastination is the enemy of success.” ― Unknown
- “What is deferred is not avoided.” ― Thomas More
- “Someday is not a day of the week.” ― Janet Dailey
- “How soon not now, becomes never.” ― Martin Luther King
- “Procrastination is the thief of time” ―. Edward Young
- “In delay there lies no plenty.” ― William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)
- “Procrastination may not lead to the best desired outcome.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.” ― Ellen DeGeneres
- “Action will destroy your procrastination.” ― Og Mandino
- “Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.” ― Unknown
Best Quotes About Procrastination
- “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ― Nelson Mandela
- “Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.” ― Chinua Achebe
- “Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin.” ― Victor Kiam
- “Just because you can postpone something doesn’t mean you should.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters.” ― Pandora Poikilos
- “When there is a hill to climb, don’t think that waiting will make it smaller.” ― Unknown
- “Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” ― Aaron Burr
- “Procrastination is an eclipse to your true potential.” ― Neeraj Agnihotri
- “Anything worth putting off is worth abandoning altogether.” ― Epictetus
- “If it weren’t the last minute, nothing would get done.” ― Rita Mae Brown
- “What may be done at any time will be done at no time.” ― Scottish Proverb
- “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” ― Mark Twain
- “Never put things off…you will wake up and find them gone.” ― James Jones
- “A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large.” ― Alyce Cornyn-Selby
- “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” ― Wayne Gretzky
Famous Procrastinating Quotes
- “It’s never procrastination when you owe someone else.” ― Jeffrey G. Duarte
- “The penalty for procrastination is the loss of hopes and dreams.” ― Tai Lopez
- “Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.” ― Mason Cooley
- “When you procrastinate, you also postpone happiness.” ― Charles F Glassman
- “Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you.” ― Paulo Coelho
- “The scholar’s greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.” ― Stephen King
- “There is nothing so fatal to character as half finished tasks.” ― David Lloyd George
- “The greatest amount of wasted time is the time getting started.” ― Dawson Trotman
- “How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.” ― Fred Brooks
- “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today.” ― Wayne Dyer
Inspirational Quotes On Procrastination
- “Tomorrow, a beautiful lie we tell ourselves to procrastinate today.” ― Sunita Sonkar
- “The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.” ―Unknown
- “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” ― Abraham Lincoln
- “You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.” ― Benjamin Franklin
- “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” ― Pablo Picasso
- “Procrastination is the kidnapper of souls and the recruiting-officer of hell.” ― Edward Irving
- “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” ― William James
- “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.” ― Jerry West
- “If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” ― Olin Miller
- “Never put off until tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” ― Mark Twain
Procrastination Quotes to Get You Started
- “We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.” ― Erica Jong
- “Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.” ― Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
- “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” ― Stephen King
- “Begin while others are procrastinating. Work while others are wishing.” ― William Arthur Ward
- “The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.” ― Rita Emmett
- “Often greater risk is involved in postponement than in making a wrong decision.” ― Harry A. Hopf
- “Procrastination is also a subtle act of corruption – it corrupts valuable time.” ― Dr. Amit Abraham
- “There is sometimes only a very fine line between deliberation and procrastination.” ― Paul A. Walker
- “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” ― Abraham Lincoln
- “The man who waits to know everything is the man who never does anything.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
Procrastination Quotes to Get You Started
- “Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” ― Peter Drucker
- “The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.” ― Alexander Graham Bell
- “A day can really slip by when you’re deliberately avoiding what you’re supposed to do.” ― Bill Watterson
- “In the conduct of almost every affair slowness and procrastination are hateful.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero
- “Procrastination is indeed the real enemy of success. Kill it, and you will see rapid growth.” ― Vincent Okeke
- “Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today. Procrastination is a sign of weak character.” ― Carol Cox
- “If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you’ll find you’ve done it.” ― George Bernard Shaw
- “The momentum of continuous action fuels motivation, while procrastination kills motivation.” ― Steve Pavlina
- Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.” ― George H. Lorimer
- “Every day spent procrastinating is another day spent worrying about that thing. Do it now, and move on with your life!” ― Unknown
Procrastination Quotes to Take Action
- “Don’t let procrastination take over your life. Be brave and take risks. Your life is happening right now.” ― Roy Bennett
- “Procrastination is the lazy cousin of fear. When we feel anxiety around an activity, we postpone it.” ― Noelle Hancock
- The problem with procrastination is it’s been around since the beginning of time it seems.” ― Stephen Richards
- “Procrastination is not Laziness”, I tell him. “It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.” ― Julia Cameron
- “Don’t wait for someone to take you under their wing. Find a good wing and climb up underneath it.” ― Frank C. Bucaro
- “Following-through is the only thing that separates dreamers from people that accomplish great things.” ― Gene Hayden
- “My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” ― Charles Dickens
- “We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?” ― Buddha
- “You may not be punished for your procrastination, but for sure you will be punished by your procrastination.” ― Debasish Mridha
- “Doing things at the last minute reminds us of the importance of doing things at the first minute.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
- “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
- “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” ― Wayne Dyer
- “Procrastination is like going to a fancy restaurant and filling up on bread and not leaving enough room for dinner.” ― Richie Norton
- “If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem… break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time.” ― Robert Collier
- “The search for the perfect venture can turn into procrastination. Your idea may or may not have merit. The key is to get started.” ― Unknown
- “The breeding ground of fear is procrastination and inaction. We overcome them not by preparation, but by taking action.” ― Debasish Mridha
- “Procrastination is a bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” ― Napoleon Hill
- “If you have goals and procrastination you have nothing. If you have goals and you take action, you will have anything you want.” ― Thomas J. Vilord
- “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.” ― St. Augustine of Hippo
- “Your Life Is Happening Right Now: Don’t let procrastination take over your life. Be brave and take risks. Your life is happening right now.” ― Roy T. Bennett
- “Everyone procrastinates. The difference between high performers and low performers is largely determined by what they choose to procrastinate on.” ― Brian Tracy
- “I’d be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I’d been given. I’d be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.” ― Denzel Washington
- “No more excuses or procrastination! Stop allowing your days to be stolen by busy nothingness and take calculated steps towards your goals.” ― Steve Maraboli
- “In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
- “Procrastination has been called a thief—the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It is a murderer; and that which it kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul.” ― William Nevins
Stop Procrastination Quotes
- “One of these days is none of these days.” ―Proverb
- “Time wasted is existence; used is life.” ― Edward Young
- “Do first what you don’t want to do most.” ― Clifford Cohen
- “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” ― Napoleon Hill
- “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” ― David Allen
- “He who is begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.” ― Horace
- “Procrastination is the seed of self-destruction.” ― Matthew Burton
- “Don’t procrastinate, start building yourself now!” ― Sunday Adelaja
- “Begin to weave and God will give you the thread.” ― German Proverb
- “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” ― Karen Lamb
- “Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today.” ― Thomas Jefferson
- “It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
- “To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.” ― Eva Young
- “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” ― Jim Rohn
- “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.” ― Dale Carnegie
- “Procrastination has robbed us of too many opportunities.” ― Sarah Ban Breathnach
- “Avoid delays: procrastination always does harm.” ― Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus)
- “Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” ― Michael Landon
- “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ― Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ― Charles Darwin
- “If you put off everything till you’re sure of it, you’ll never get anything done.” ― Norman Vincent Peale
- “Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” ― Peter Drucker
- “How to stop procrastinating starts with believing you can overcome procrastination.” ― Robert Moment
- “Procrastination is probably my worst habit out of many. Especially when it comes to paperwork.” ― Tom Conti
- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ― Anne Frank
- “The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.” ― Thomas Sowell
- “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” ― Seneca
- “My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.” ― Charles Dickens
- “If you want to get ahead in life, I’ve found that perhaps the most useless word in the world is “tomorrow.” ― José N. Harris
- “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.” ― James A. Michener
- “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” ― David Allen
- “Often just by taking action, by doing something about the situation can relieve the stress and help correct the situation.” ― Catherine Pulsifer
- “Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait – the truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.” ― Robert Anthony
- “Procrastination is illogical from every viewpoint. It is like the man who wanted to cross the stream, so he sat on the bank to wait for all the water to run by.” ― Vernon Howard
- “To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.” ― Sydney Smith
Funny Procrastination Quotes
- “Due tomorrow? Do tomorrow.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastination is not the problem, it is the solution.” ― Unknown
- “Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.” ― Spanish Proverb
- “The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” ― Don Marquis
- “Procrastination gives you something to look forward to.” ― Joan Konner
- “I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!” ― Sam Levenson
- “Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow.” ― Gerald Vaughan
- “Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.” ― Jimmy Lyons
- “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.” ― Vincent T. Foss
- “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ― Douglas Adams
- “You know you are getting old when it takes too much effort to procrastinate.” ― Unknown
- “I’m a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.” ― Ella Varner
- “Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.” ― Christopher Parker
- “Do you know what happens when you give a procrastinator a good idea? Nothing!” ― Donald Gardner
- “My mother always told me I wouldn’t amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, ‘Just wait.” ― Judy Tenuta
- “Procrastination taught me how to do 30 minutes of work in 8 hours and 8 hours of work in 30 minutes.” ― Unknown
- “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” ― Robert Benchley
- “Procrastinator? No. I save all my homework until the last minute because then I’ll be older, and therefore wiser.” ― Unknown
- “Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow. I know that I should stop it. In fact, I will — tomorrow!” ― Gloria Pitzer
More Motivational Quotes
Overall, procrastination quotes can serve as a reminder to stay focused, stay motivated, and avoid putting things off.
They can also help people feel less alone in their struggles with procrastination, knowing that many others have faced similar challenges throughout history.
If you think you can relate to these motivational quotes feel free to spread your feelings and share them with friends and family on Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and more.