Why shifting time to “later” isn’t worth it

When I was younger, I always had the attitude of “I’ll do it later” when it came to work. There was always something more fun to do and we all know how much better instant gratification is.

As I grew older, I matured enough to understand why, sometimes it’s important to get work done first. Delayed gratification can be that much better when sweetened with a major goal or milestone reached. But still, occasionally I would argue with myself, “can’t I do this later?” Getting things done later vs. earlier seemed to just be a matter of semantics. I was after all just moving time wasn’t I? Pushing a deadline out by 2 days is the same thing as starting a job 2 days later. It’s not as if delaying work fundamentally lengthened it.

I no longer believe that to be true. Shifting time around as an argument only works if you shift all time around. But when we want to delay times for work, we selectively want to keep times for play. Starting a 5-day assignment on Tuesday doesn’t mean I’ll finish on Saturday. It actually means I’ll finish on Monday, because more likely than not, I’m not going to give up my Friday night and Saturday in favor of Monday. In fact, because the weekend cuts into the assignment, it’s likely that when I pick up Monday morning, I’ll need some extra time to pick back up (now imagine if I felt a case of lazy Monday and wanted to delay again…). In other words, doing work later may in fact lengthen the time required. Not to mention it may cut into your enjoyment of your weekend, because part of you is anxious about finishing and part of you wishes you’d just sucked it up earlier (the past is the easiest target for blame).

And that’s why, next time you want to push work off “just because”, you may want to reconsider!

These are the things I muse about while building an on-demand rental & delivery service for outdoors recreational equipment. Check it out at www.lastmingear.com.