Defeating the Tomorrow Man: How to Stop Procrastinating Today
We all know that voice in our head that whispers, “You can just do it tomorrow.” It sounds so reasonable, so accommodating. Today is already busy enough, right? Tomorrow will magically have more time, more energy, more motivation.
Today, I want to share with you the techniques that helped me break free from procrastination’s grip and finally start changing my life. But first, let me tell you a little story about someone you might recognize…
The Tomorrow Man
“Tomorrow,” he said. And somehow, things got done.
Mark was known among his friends as “The Tomorrow Man.” Not because he was futuristic or ahead of his time. Quite the opposite. Everything in Mark’s life was scheduled for that mythical day that never seemed to arrive: tomorrow.
“I’ll start that workout routine tomorrow.” “I’ll begin writing my book tomorrow.” “I’ll call my old friend tomorrow.” “I’ll clean out the garage tomorrow.”
His calendar was perpetually empty today, but tomorrow? Tomorrow was absolutely packed with productivity, ambition, and life-changing decisions.
The strange thing about Mark, though, was that despite his constant deferrals, his life seemed to be progressing remarkably well.
His colleagues noticed he was getting more fit. “Have you been working out?” they’d ask.
“Oh, I was planning to start tomorrow,” he’d say with a smile. Yet his arms were more defined, his posture better.
His mother called one evening, delighted. “I just finished the first three chapters of your book! When did you start writing?”
“Tomorrow,” Mark replied casually. “I’m planning to really dive in tomorrow.”
His garage, once cluttered with boxes and forgotten projects, was now organized with labeled shelves and clear pathways. When his neighbor commented on the transformation, Mark shrugged. “Just planning to tackle it tomorrow, actually.”
Even more puzzling was the call he received from an old college friend.
“Mark! It was so great catching up after all these years. Thanks for reaching out yesterday.”
“No problem,” Mark said. “Though I was actually planning to call you tomorrow.”
As months passed, Mark’s life transformed. He had the body of someone who exercised regularly, the portfolio of someone who created consistently, the connections of someone who nurtured relationships diligently, and the organized living space of someone with impeccable habits.
Yet every night, Mark would lie in bed, mapping out his grand plans for “tomorrow.”
Then one morning, Mark woke to find a stranger sitting at the foot of his bed.
“Who are you?” Mark asked, startled.
“I’m Tomorrow,” the stranger replied. “And I’ve been doing everything you’ve been putting off.”
Mark stared in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
Tomorrow smiled sadly. “What’s impossible is the life you think you’re living. Get up.”
The stranger led Mark around his apartment, which was nothing like he remembered. Exercise equipment gathered dust in the corner. His computer’s word document contained nothing but a title page. His phone showed no recent calls to old friends. And his garage? An impassable maze of forgotten intentions.
“I don’t understand,” Mark whispered.
“You’ve been dreaming, Mark,” Tomorrow explained. “In your dreams, everything you postpone actually happens. But in reality?” He gestured around the cluttered, neglected apartment. “This is what perpetual postponement looks like.”
“So none of it was real? The fitness, the writing, the connections?”
“None of it. But it could be,” Tomorrow said. “Just not through me. I never come, Mark. I’m always 24 hours away. Always just out of reach.”
Mark felt a hollowness spreading through his chest as he realized the truth.
“Then who can help me? If not tomorrow, then who?”
Tomorrow pointed to a clock on the wall.
“Today,” he said simply. “Now. This moment. It’s all you ever have.”
Mark woke with a jolt, for real this time. No mysterious visitor, just the harsh light of morning and the weight of countless postponed decisions.
He reached for his phone to check the time, but instead of sliding into his usual social media routine, he paused. For the first time, he saw clearly the pattern of his life – an endless cycle of deferring what mattered while consuming what didn’t.
“Not tomorrow,” he whispered to himself. “Today.”
He set down his phone, put on his running shoes, and stepped outside. The cool morning air filled his lungs as he took his first stride toward a different kind of life.
Behind him, Tomorrow stood watching, knowing he would never be needed again.
My Battle with Tomorrow
I used to be Mark. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was worse than Mark.
My “tomorrow list” was legendary – a graveyard of dreams, projects, and intentions. That business idea? Tomorrow. Learning how to code this app idea you came up with? Tomorrow. Catching up with mom and dad? Tomorrow. Getting in shape again? You guessed it.
The scary part? I was completely convinced that tomorrow would indeed be the day. Every night, I’d go to bed feeling oddly accomplished, as if planning or learning about how to do something carried the same weight as actually doing it.
Until one day, I had my own wake-up call. It wasn’t as dramatic as Mark’s supernatural visitor, but it was just as jarring. I was watching yet another tutorial on how to program something for my app idea. For five months, I had been doing this. I had learned so much. Or did I?
I was reading “Surrounded by Idiots” by Thomas Erikson. In chapter 9, he discusses the learning pyramid, which shows that passive activities like reading, hearing words, and looking at pictures—essentially what I was doing by watching tutorials—represent the least effective forms of learning.
I realized I was still in exactly the same place I was when I started almost half a year ago – perpetually 24 hours away from beginning the actual project.
That was the moment I realized I was living in a fantasy, just like Mark. Tomorrow wasn’t coming to save me. It never had, and it never would.
So what changed? How did I finally break free from procrastination’s grip?
The Psychology Behind Our Tomorrow Addiction
Before sharing what worked for me, it’s worth understanding why we do this to ourselves.
Psychologists have identified several reasons why we procrastinate:
- Present bias – Dr. Daniel Kahneman and other behavioral economists explain that we’re wired to value immediate rewards over future benefits, even when the future benefits are much greater. As noted on BehavioralEconomics.com, this time inconsistency in our preferences leads us to continually postpone difficult tasks.
- Task aversion – According to research published in Frontiers in Psychology, the more we perceive a task as difficult, boring, or uncomfortable, the more likely we are to put it off. This emotional response often overrides our rational understanding of the task’s importance.
- Perfectionism – Dr. Gordon Flett’s research on procrastination and perfectionism shows that ironically, wanting something to be perfect often prevents us from starting at all. The fear of producing imperfect work keeps us in planning mode indefinitely.
- Fear of failure – Research from NACADA at Kansas State University demonstrates that sometimes not trying feels safer than trying and discovering we aren’t as capable as we hoped. Our brains protect our self-image by avoiding situations where failure is possible.
- Abstract future thinking – Studies on temporal perception reveal that “tomorrow” exists as an abstract concept in our minds, making it easy to assign idealized conditions to it. We imagine our future selves as more motivated, less tired, and working in perfect conditions.
Understanding these mechanisms helped me realize my procrastination wasn’t a character flaw – it was a natural tendency that needed conscious strategies to overcome. It is an emotion that you can overcome by understanding what its source is.
If you want to read more about all this, “Feel Good Productivity” by Dr. Ali Abdaal helped me a lot in understanding these psychological principles.
How I Defeated My Tomorrow Man
Here are the concrete techniques that helped me transition from a chronic procrastinator to someone who actually makes progress on what matters:
1. The Five-Minute Rule
I committed to working on any postponed task for just five minutes. That’s it. Five minutes is so short that there’s no excuse not to do it. The beauty of this approach? Once you start, you often keep going. Beginning is almost always the hardest part.
Example: When I needed to start coding my app, I opened my development environment and committed to just setting up the basic file structure for five minutes. Forty-five minutes later, I had written my first functional module without even noticing the time passing.
As productivity expert David Allen explains in “Getting Things Done”, the resistance to starting is often greater than the resistance to continuing.
2. Destroying the Myth of the Perfect Moment
I recognized that waiting for the “right time” was just another form of procrastination. There is no perfect moment – there’s only now, with all its imperfections and limitations. The first few tries might fail or might not be what you were expecting, but you will learn from trying, not from watching.
Example: I wanted to wait until I had a full week free to start my fitness routine, but instead decided to do a 15-minute workout despite having a busy day. This simple decision broke the spell of waiting for perfect conditions.
Neil Fiore, author of “The Now Habit,” calls this “unscheduling”—focusing on starting rather than finishing, and working with the time you actually have rather than waiting for ideal chunks of time.
3. Making Tomorrow Concrete
Instead of vague plans like “I’ll start exercising tomorrow,” I began writing specific action plans: “Tomorrow at 9:00 AM, I will put on my running shoes and run for 20 minutes around the park.” Being specific made it harder to escape my commitments.
Example: Rather than saying “I’ll work on my app tomorrow,” I wrote: “At 9:00 AM tomorrow, I will open Visual Studio Code and implement the login screen for exactly 30 minutes.”
Research on implementation intentions shows that specifying the exact when, where, and how of an action dramatically increases follow-through rates. On this one, feel free to learn more on my other blog post: Crafting Personal Quests
4. Creating Accountability
I started telling people what I planned to do and when. Knowing someone might ask about my progress made me more likely to follow through.
Example: I told my friend I would send him the first working prototype of my app by Friday. The commitment created just enough social pressure to keep me working when motivation wavered.
Studies on accountability partners show that the simple act of reporting progress to someone else can increase your chances of completing a goal by up to 65%, according to the American Society of Training and Development.
5. Rewiring My Reward System
I learned to celebrate the act of beginning rather than just completion. Started writing for 10 minutes? That deserves acknowledgment. This shifted my focus from outcomes to process.
Example: After each coding session, no matter how brief, I marked it on my calendar with a bright green X. The growing chain of X’s became a reward in itself, making me want to maintain the streak.
Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer call this “the progress principle” in their research—the discovery that making progress, even small progress, is the most powerful motivator in meaningful work.
6. The “Do It Now” Mantra
For small tasks that would take less than 2 minutes, I adopted a simple rule: never postpone what can be done immediately. Need to send that quick email? Do it now. Dishes in the sink? Do them now.
Example: When I received an important email that required a brief response, instead of marking it “to answer later,” I immediately typed out my reply. The entire process took 90 seconds, and one less task lingered on my mind.
As David Allen points out in “Getting Things Done,” quick tasks actually take more mental energy to remember and reschedule than to simply complete in the moment.
Practical “Do It NOW” Exercises
If you recognize yourself in Mark’s story or mine, here are some exercises you can do right now (yes, NOW, not tomorrow):
Exercise 1: The Tomorrow Audit
Grab a piece of paper and write down everything you’ve been postponing to “tomorrow.” Be brutally honest. Now circle the ONE item that would have the biggest positive impact on your life if you actually did it.
Example: My list included organizing my digital notes, and starting my AI project. I circled the AI project because it represented both a passion and potential income source.
Exercise 2: Micro-Commitment
Take that circled item and break it down into the smallest possible first step. Something so tiny it would be ridiculous not to do it. Now do that step before you finish reading this article.
Example: For my app, the micro-commitment was simply creating a new folder on my computer called “MyAI” and writing a single text file listing the core features. It took 3 minutes but broke the psychological barrier to starting.
Exercise 3: Environment Design
Look around you. What in your environment makes procrastination easier? Is it your phone within reach? The TV remote on the coffee table? Make one small change to your environment right now that will make procrastination harder tomorrow.
Example: I installed app blockers on my phone that activate during my designated work hours, and moved my remote controller to a drawer rather than leaving it visible on my desk.
Exercise 4: The Tomorrow Tax
For every day you postpone an important task, add a small “tax” – either a financial commitment to donate to charity or an additional sub-task that makes the original task slightly more challenging. Make postponement increasingly expensive.
Example: For each day I postponed working on my app, I added 5€ to a donation jar. This thought alone was enough to motivate me to start working rather than start paying the “tax.” – I’m not rich! 😁
Your Turn: Confront Your Tomorrow Man
Now I’d love to hear from you. In the comments below, share:
- What’s one thing you’ve been putting off to “tomorrow” for too long?
- Which technique from this post resonates most with you?
- What’s the micro-step you commit to taking TODAY (not tomorrow) toward that goal?
By sharing publicly, you’re already activating the accountability technique. And who knows – your commitment might inspire someone else to break free from their own Tomorrow Man.
Conclusion: Making Today Count
The battle against procrastination isn’t won in a single day. It’s a daily practice of choosing present action over future promises. What I’ve learned through my journey is that the satisfaction of making real progress, however small, far outweighs the temporary comfort of postponement.
The Tomorrow Man lives in all of us, whispering sweet possibilities about what we might do someday. But real change happens when we acknowledge that “someday” never appears on any calendar. Only “today” does.
So I’ll leave you with this question: When you reach the end of today, will you have moved one step closer to the life you want? Or will you have simply rescheduled your dreams for a tomorrow that never comes?
Remember, tomorrow is a promise that never arrives. All we ever have is now.
What will you do with your now?
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