The Wit's Guide to Procrastination
Or, don't eat frogs
It’s a rare thing when the wisecrack doubles as a lifehack, but here’s a line that cracks and hacks:
“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”
— Robert Benchley
This gem, encased by the New Yorker humorist in a 1930 essay on productivity, is demonstrably true. As I write this sentence, I am not calling a roofer about a leak. Why, I could easily write a hundred more sentences that will do absolutely nothing to prevent water damage.
“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
— Don Marquis
Come to think of it, procrastination is like the rain that’s causing that leak: Not bad, per se, just inconvenient to those who aren’t prepared for it. The solution is definitively not to get all high and mighty about it, but rather to pack an umbrella.
“If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.”
— Thomas de Quincey
Whatever you do, don’t Eat That Frog! This is the title of a best-selling (and not just in France!) 2001 productivity book that argues you just need to do the worst thing first and get it over with. First, that title erroneously credits the line to Mark Twain, when in fact it came from stereotype-confirming Frenchman Nicolas Chamfort. And second, per Benchley, that unpleasant advice robs you of the natural wellspring of vigor and vim that’s part of avoiding amphibian consumption.
“Make me a beautiful word for doing things tomorrow, for that surely is a great and blessed invention.”
— George Bernard Shaw
The procrastinator should be celebrated. Here is a person willing to Do The Work, to devote intense focus and attention to the task not at hand. They will accomplish 99 hard things with elan and aplomb so long as they don’t have to face one extra irksome task. They will clean the house from top to bottom, call old friends, and finally organize those family photos. And then, to tackle the thing they’re putting off, they simply need to find a worse thing. And life is full of worse things!
“Next week, or next month, or next year I’ll kill myself. But I might as well last out my month’s rent, which has been paid up, and my credit for breakfast in the morning.”
— Jean Rhys
Let it be noted that this Wit’s Guide to Procrastination is significantly overlapping with the Wit’s Guide to Death, the one unpleasant task that’s at the bottom of all our To Do lists. As such, it’s another opportunity to laud Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. If you keep putting off things you don’t want to do, eventually the Grim Reaper will cut you off the hook with his scythe.
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
— Pablo Picasso
You know who was a terrible procrastinator? Leonardo da Vinci. He invented the helicopter in the 1480s but didn’t get it off the ground for another half-millennium. And he was so late to paint the Last Supper that Orthodox Easter is still delayed. Consider that next time you’re choppering into an egg hunt.
But wait!! Riposte Cards!!!
Riposte Cards are an analog celebration of wit delivered by hand and foot to the paid digital subscribers of this newsletter. Every month, I commission a brilliant artist to riff upon a witty line, and then I print it on 4x6 postcards and send them to the 21 of you who’ve ponied up a few bucks to support this enterprise. Blackjack!
Here’s what you got in March and April. The May Riposte will be drawn by the inimitable Graham Roumieu, and I’ll unveil the design next week.
For now, here’s a glimpse into the artist’s tortured mind:
What’s your go-to item in a well-stocked stationery store?
If they carry the Fabriano pocket size blank page sketchbooks with the solid bright colour covers, I know I am dealing with a retailer of quality. If I go to an art supply store and they have a ton of sketchbooks with lines or grids, I am led to believe I am in an art supply store for people who aren’t very good at art.
Where do you go for inspiration and/or information?
You know those pointer dogs used for bird hunting who will just stand in a pose pointing at a bird in the bush until someone decides to shoot the bird or tell the very dedicated super-specialized dog the thing they are pointing at isn’t worth it? My process is kind of like both the dog’s and the bird’s in that analogy that makes less and less sense the more I think about it so I will stop thinking about it now.
Who is the hunter? I dunno.
Is there one joke, witticism, or aphorism you live by?
There’s an old cartoon with a policeman kicking and shouting at a blind beggar to clear a path for a cartoonist. I don’t live by that at all, it just came to mind when you asked the question. Please don’t look it up. Please don’t judge me.
What's the best thing to put on toast?
More like what is wrong with people eating toast and not putting a plate under it? Just walking around eating toast like an anarchist.
What work are you most proud of, and how can people support it?
Please put at least a couple of humorous watercolourists on whatever the giant planetary escape ship gets called.
Also www.roumieu.com.
But wait some more!!!
When I’m not operating a bespoke postcard enterprise, I co-maintain the Toronto Recursive History Project of Toronto’s Recursive History. This week we received a flurry of interest following a visit from the curator of Depths of Wikipedia:
To cash in on this groundswell of nerdery, I’ve ordered up the following stickers— and I’ll pop one into to every May Riposte Card mailing. If you know you want one, then you definitely know you want one!
Quote Vote
“The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them.”
— Juan Ramón Jiménez
Next week is the 200th issue of this newsletter. Let’s mark the occasion! Or not! You tell me!
Didja notice how Get Wit Quick No. 199 was sent not just on time but early? Proof that all the advice contained herein (therein? theremin?) is 110% correct. My book was called Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting. I still ask people to tap the ❤️even though I think it’s algorithmically moot, so feel free to do it later.