Procrastination is the Thief of Time

Are you a procrastinator? ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’. Have you heard this phrase before? http://www.footwatching.com Well, it’s an old adage coined by the English writer Edward Young in his 10,000-line poem entitled: The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, more simply known as Night-Thoughts. In the poem, Young muses on death and urges us to ‘be wise to-day’ as life and opportunities can slip away quickly. Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is push’d out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene. A similar thought is found in Robert Greene’s Gwydonius (1584), in which he wrote that delaying breeds danger and that “procrastination in perils is but the mother of mishap.”