My procrastination pretty much went away (!) when I drew a distinction between “good” and “bad” delays. A delay is in the “good” category if there are specific

My procrastination pretty much went away (!) when I drew a distinction between “good” and “bad” delays. A delay is in the “good” category if there are specific reasons that it’s likely that there will be another time in the near future which is better than right now. For example, if the task you’re considering require mental acuity, and you’re really tired, and it’s likely you’ll be less tired tomorrow, then it could be good to delay. Or, if it’s time to do a chore except you’re in flow and productive, it could be good to delay the chore: it’s likely there’s a time in the near future where you wouldn’t have to give up productivity to complete it. On the other hand, if there’s unlikely to be a better time in the future, and you should just do it immediately. (This is especially true for tasks that actually become more work to do if you wait.) Before drawing this distinction, I had thought the way to avoid procrastination was just never to delay. Attempting to live up to that had proven unrealistic/costly, so I would end up delaying a bunch for all sorts of reasons including bad ones. After I started drawing this distinction, I set about never procrastinating for bad reasons, while often delaying for good ones.