Barbara Tuchman Quotes

If we didn't have deadlines, we'd stagnate.

I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.

There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

The minimum I need is six months to allow for dithering, procrastination and the research. The research times varies from book to book; some are faster because they're based off resources I have at my disposal.

Do the jobs you like least first. It makes each successive job easier.

Don't fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all

Do it, delegate it, delay it, or dump it.

I need eight hours to get maybe 20 minutes of work done. I had one of those yesterday: seven hours of self-loathing.

I am most drawn to writing when I have something else urgent to do.

Do not put off today's work until tomorrow, lest work accumulate and you achieve nothing.

The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.

Sometimes they work, and sometimes they just won't. Sometimes you get hung up on them. When that happens, you just throw it back, and maybe come back to it two or three weeks later.

Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

There is large difference between indolent impatience of labor and intellectual impatience of delay, large difference between leaving things unfinished because we have more to do or because we are satisfied with what we have done.

A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency. It has no real beginning or end.

In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.

You'll sometimes hear from people that they actually do a better job of getting their work done when they have a lot of other obligations - in effect, it removes the possibility of procrastinating.

Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around.

I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!

What motivates people to be late?... Some people are drawn to the adrenaline rush of that last-minute sprint to the finish line. Others receive an ego boost from over-scheduling and filling each moment with an activity.

I procrastinate, and I push writing to the last available moment, because I don't like to settle on anything. I guess you can call it indecision or you can call it holding out for inspiration.

Oh, they've been putting in the long hours ... But is that because they don't have the skills, and everything takes twice as long? Or do they put in these hours to avoid what they should be doing ... which is stopping and binning a lot of [their work]?

The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.

What has not wasting time impaired?