John Perry Quotes

#1. You may lack will power, but that doesn't mean you can't take a lot of steps to make yourself more productive.

John Perry

#2. Hope provides comfort, and hope does not always require probability.

John Perry

#3. The essence is that many procrastinators are "structured procrastinators," people who, like me, get a lot done as a way of not working on what they should ideally be working on.

John Perry

#4. Taking a long time to do something not worth doing, that is, doing it inefficiently, seems even more useless.

John Perry

#5. Task triage is the habit of making a realistic assessment of what degree of perfection is required for a task at the point of accepting it, so one doesn't need to rely on one's habit of procrastinating to lower the bar.

John Perry

#6. While procrastinating is not a flaw, being a structured procrastinator is actually one way of being pretty productive.

John Perry

#7. I was surprised by how many people think of themselves as procrastinators, but, like me, seem to get a lot done anyway.

John Perry

#8. Plan your day with an eye to your tendency to procrastinate, and put in safeguards to keep it to a minimum.

John Perry

#9. Voltaire was a smart cookie.

John Perry

#10. Nothing focuses attention like a real deadline. If you are in a field where life and death, or having a job or not having a job, depends on not missing deadlines, you need to learn to manipulate yourself to meet them; often a good way of doing this is teaming up with non-procrastinators.

John Perry

#11. The fantasy of doing a task perfectly is common with procrastinators; they set the bar for success very high. Then they are afraid to approach it. As the deadline approaches, they must set the bar lower.

John Perry