For years, procrastination was my best friend.

.

Procrastination was that compadre from the wrong side of the tracks.

I knew I shouldn’t associate with Procrastination.

And I would pretend like we didn’t know each other, when other people were around.

But procrastination and I were tight!

Procrastination was slick, too!

That sneaky friend that you couldn’t turn your back on.

.

Procrastination would sneak into my to-do list.

Giving me all sorts of ideas of things I should work on,

Things I should not forget,

Things I should be alarmed about

Deadlines that were never met

.

Procrastination would remind me of how I tended to procrastinate.

“Why bother trying to be different this time?

It’s just going to end up like all the other times.

Wait until the last minute,

Then, you can blame your lack of results on a lack of time.”

.

Procrastination would tell me that potential was enough.

Talent was enough.

Good intentions were enough.

Grand aspirations were enough.

“There’s always tomorrow”, procrastination would tell me.

“As long as you’re on the right path

There’s always tomorrow.”

.

When I found my first gray hair

Procrastination told me:

“Yes, you should probably really get things going soon.

But it’s just one stray gray hair

At least it’s not two.”

And when the second came, “at least it’s not three.”

.

Several times, I tried to distance myself from procrastination.

But each time, I procrastinated doing that.

And so, procrastination stood by and watched, as I cheated myself of my full potential.

All for the love of a friend that never loved me back.

I recently decided to make a very public split with procrastination.

So when procrastination wasn’t looking, I snuck and wrote this manifesto.

Quiet as is kept, I had been meaning to write this for years.

But,

Well,

You know how that went.

What I did, was different from what I meant.

Procrastination always put an arm around me

When things didn’t go my way.

“There’s always tomorrow”, procrastination would gently say.

After  I outed procrastination, and rejected more delay

The Sun did rise the next day, so I diligently made hay.

.

“stop trying to do more stuff.

start doing stuff that matters.

and wilfully procrastinate on everything else.”

– The Nocrastinator’s Manifesto

2011