Instead of believing we have the temperament of divine beings, we can reconcile ourselves with our humanity—to the fact that we are flawed and compromised creatures—and act accordingly.
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The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done | 
Instead of believing we have the temperament of divine beings, we can reconcile ourselves with our humanity—to the fact that we are flawed and compromised creatures—and act accordingly.
irrationally putting off is a tendency, not an inevitability.
“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”
Overregulation—seeking the perfect over the real—isn‘t healthy and won‘t make you happy.
A genuine and autonomous individual seeks a life endorsed by the whole self, not just a fragment of it.
Do or do not do. There is no try.
MASTER YODA
In the end, the responsibility lies where it has always
Routines are like Don Quixote‘s windmills; they can raise you up to the heavens or drop you down into the mud.
making goals challenging is more inspiring than making them attainable.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Mark Twain
Inch by inch, life‘s a cinch; yard by yard, life is hard.
“Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.”
“Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address,”
“Throw the troops into a position from which there is no escape, and even faced with death they will not flee. For if prepared to die, what can they not achieve? Then officers and men together put forth their utmost effort.”
Sun Tzu. The Art of War.
Impulsiveness runs through every vice that involves weakness of the will.
He that has not a mastery over his inclinations, he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger never to be good for anything.
JOHN LOCKE
we are willing to pursue any vile task as long as it allows us to avoid something worse.
sweet treats will restore willpower just long enough for you to regret the indulgence.
To some extent, we should accept that we don‘t have infinite mental energy and acknowledge our motivational limitations along with our physical ones.
Fatigue increases task-aversion, saps interest, and makes the difficult excruciating.
Frame your tasks appropriately; the way you view them significantly determines their value.
nothing good or bad in this world but thinking makes it so.
frame your long-term goals in terms of the success you want to achieve—an approach goal—rather than the failure you want to prevent—an avoidance goal.
the risk of procrastination diminishes when tasks are relevant, instrumentally connected to topics and goals of personal significance.
Finding the balance between the difficulty of your task and your ability to do it is a key component for creating flow, a state of total engagement.
To relieve task boredom, try making things more difficult for yourself.
Anything can be made more interesting simply by the way we treat it.
The tasks we hate are among those we tend to postpone.
If time flies when you're having fun, it hits the afterburners when you don‘t think you're having enough.
JEF MALLETT
Confidence or optimism turns out to be a lot like vitamin A: too little of it will lead to blindness but too much of it can kill you.
Lose this day loitering—‘twill be the same story
To-morrow—and the next more dilatory;
Each indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o'er lost day,s
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute—
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated—
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!
“Never suffer an exception to occur.”
When it is time to decide whether to work or procrastinate, there is no shortage of excuses for giving in to temptation.
it is possible to improve self-control by embracing your pessimism.
Life won‘t always go your way. Rather than expecting perfection, anticipate difficulties and setbacks.
“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”
Rather than believing you can entirely and easily beat the problem of procrastination, believe that you can beat it down.
Success requires balancing optimism with realism: it will be a hard slog and there will likely be lapses, but you can get back on track.
PLAN FOR THE WORST, HOPE FOR THE BEST
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,”
“I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that‘s when something snaps up and bites you.”
Neil Armstrong
It changes the story of the Little Engine That Could from “I think I can” to “I think it will.” That‘s a big difference.
think positive and the positive will come toward you.
Attitudes are catching, so you would be smart to hang out with groups of upbeat people.
“Shouldn‘t the big chain be around the big elephant?” No, he explained to me, the younger elephant needs the bigger chain because it is still struggling to become free. Eventually, it will accept that the chain won‘t break and, like the mother, it will stop trying.
Success breeds success.
accomplishment creates confidence, which creates effort resulting in more accomplishment.
Each hard-won victory gives a new sense of self and a desire to strive for more.
if we set ourselves an ongoing series of challenging but ultimately achievable goals, we maximize our motivation and make the achievement meaningful, reflecting our capabilities.