“Procrastinators of the world unite!… Tomorrow.” This pithy saying appears on novelty t-shirts all across the internet. But behind the joke, it hints at a major habit haunting millions of adults today – the habit of putting off until tomorrow, or the next day, or someday soon, what can be done today. From the Latin pro, meaning “forward,” and crastinus, meaning “of tomorrow,” the practice of procrastination has plagued humankind for centuries.

We spend a lot of energy looking for shortcuts to save time, and sure, those shortcuts add up. But when I look back, my biggest time regrets aren’t spending too much time on social media or mismanaging my daily tasks. Those are bad habits, but there are bigger, more systematic time wasters that have really gotten in the way. Fixing these will free up a massive amount of time and energy.