Procrastination Is Hurting Your Health

Procrastination is not your friend. Here's how to recognize when it's hampering your fitness.

Credit: Jonathan Goodman (@itscoachgoodman).

Good Morning!

I hope you had a great week.

Months ago, I wrote about the intersection between productivity and rest and highlighted the difference between rest and procrastination.

Today’s piece has a particular focus on procrastination.

There are many ways that life can get, well, in the way.

Jobs become busier, responsibilities grow, and relationships change. Sooner or later, that endeavor you planned on embarking on is so far away from getting started that you think, “Well, it wasn’t going to get done anyway.”

When I debated on starting this newsletter at the start of 2022, I told myself similar, doubtful lies:

• No one is going to read this

• I haven’t accomplished anything yet. Who wants to hear what I have to say about anything?

• I used to get paid to write weekly. Why would I write weekly for free?

• Who is going to pay for a subscription from me?

• I won’t miss out on anything if I don't do it.

None of those things could have been further from the truth. 18 months and 125 newsletters later, I have nearly 100 subscribers, over 70% readership on every newsletter, and a few paid subscribers.

This evergreen post from Daniel Abrahams on LinkedIn reminded me that nothing would be as fulfilling from the start as it is after persistently continuing.

Procrastination and Later: Your Enemies

Sometimes doubtful feelings persist, even while a motivational voice in your head, like the one above, tells you to start something eventually.

This paradox occurs in our heads with many ambitious goals — fitness, entrepreneurship, writing, content creation, making cold calls, applying for that job — you name it, there will always be something in your head telling you to “do it later.”

Procrastination comes from a feeling that we have more time than our urgent brains initially thought, so we can wait until later.

It’s okay to occasionally take the foot off the gas pedal. Rushing into everything is not a recipe for success (“haste makes waste,” as they say), but we have to toe the line between patience and procrastination.

In reality, we don’t have as much time as our brain may be telling us when it’s convincing us to procrastinate. What’s my evidence for this?

When July hit us last week, did you ask yourself, how is it already July?

When our most toiling preoccupations take hold of our schedule — work, family, and social commitments — we forget to sit in stillness and slow down time. We forget to take time for ourselves at the gym or on a walk, and time flies.

No, time doesn’t fly when you’re having fun. It doesn’t fly when you’re doing something you love. It doesn’t fly when you’re doing something unenjoyable.

It just flies.

There’s no other adage for it. And thinking it doesn’t is tricking yourself into a vicious cycle of procrastination that will eventually lead to something disappointing.

“I’ll wait until later” is code for yourself, saying, “I’m not prioritizing something because I believe more time exists than is available.” Procrastination rationalizes us away from that which is benevolent for us, only to buy us more time for prolonging. We “buy” time because we’re trading it for something else, and time isn’t refundable.

Fitness Procrastination: A Story

A textbook example of procrastination and trading time for “later” often recurs in fitness, as highlighted by my unofficial mentor, Jonathan Goodman. Action and inaction trend linearly on a spectrum.

Those who say, “I’ll get it done now,” and those who say, “I’ll do it later,” are generally the same person on a given day. But over time, the more those patterns repeat, the further those lines (people) differentiate. You'll see the deviation on the screencap in today’s header photo.

Action and Inaction as they pertain to fitness procrastination accumulate more acutely than many other activities (although everyone’s level of disappointment from procrastination varies). Years of inaction and procrastination on fitness look like low energy, a gut, depression, and even disease.

Years of action and saying no to the word “later” — even just for 15 minutes — leads to long-term success and happiness. Don’t be the person who waits for later.

Be the person who acts now.

It’s better for your mental health. You don’t have to do everything right now. But you can’t do everything later.

I hope you have a great weekend!