Later Becomes Never

You’ve probably heard this excuse before and made it more times than you’d like to admit: “I’ll do it later.”

Need to wash the dishes? “I’ll do it after this show is over”.

Have to follow up with a government agency to straighten something out? “I’ll do it later this week on a day that isn’t so ridiculously busy”.

Planning to workout first thing in the morning? “I’ll do it after work today, I’m too tired right now.”

We all know how this ends - You watch TV late and have a bunch of chores to do, so the dishes way until tomorrow. Later in the week your day is just as ridiculously busy as before and you still feel you don’t have time to make the phone call. If you thought out were tired in the morning you’re completely wiped at the end of a work day and feel even less likely to get a workout in.

Here’s the thing about ‘later’… It’s like ‘tomorrow’. It never comes. It’s permanently pushed off into the future. 

For whatever reason, we underestimate our future capacity. We sense that work will slow down someday soon, but new things get added to your plate. We think we’ll have more energy or motivation in a future moment. But when reality catches it’s just more of the same. So here are a few things you can do to actually follow through on the things that are important to you.

Eckhart Tolle wrote a book called “The Power Of Now”. The only time you can genuinely impact is the present moment. David Meltzer often says “100% of the things you do now get done” and that’s because you’re operating in a timeframe that you have control of - the present moment. So when possible, leverage it.

Outside of doing the thing right then and there, you can take action in such a way that supports you in doing said 'thing' in the future. Here's my process for that: If there’s a new idea that comes to mind or task that needs to get done, I capture it in my Task Management System. I don’t let myself get pulled too far out of my way, but I do take a moment to capture the thought or task in a centralized place. Then every evening as part of my wind down routine, I review all of the things I added over the course of the day and organize them so that I understand their level of urgency and importance.

Here’s why that’s helpful: ‘Later’ is undefined, and that’s why it never comes. There are no specific details to it. However, when you plan something for a future day or time, the calendar catches up. Doing something ‘later’ is different than scheduling it for the future. That’s why I create a schedule for the day. I take all of the things that I have on my list, review them, select the tasks that are most important to get done, and assign them a day and time by putting them in my schedule.

Being more productive on any given day is pretty straightforward - Spend more of your time doing more of the right things. All that requires is more intention and focus. In most cases you need to plan your day to maximize it. It gives you a definite direction to an otherwise aimless intention. So don’t do it late. Do it now, or plan it for the near future so that when the day and time comes, you do it then.