Starting Small · Lesson 1 of 6 · Free

Spot the later

See how later works, make the first step small enough to take, and let the doing carry you.

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The lesson

Welcome. Putting things off is rarely laziness. It's usually a feeling we'd rather not have yet. Over six short days, we'll practise starting small. Today, we just notice the word later.

You dispose of that which is in the hand of Fortune, and you let go that which is in your own. Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway.Seneca · On the Shortness of Life, section 9
Aubrey Stewart, 1889

Seneca is writing about whole lives, but the pattern is the same on a small scale. We hand today's time to a future self, whom we assume will be more energetic and less busy. That self rarely arrives. Notice the feeling just before you postpone something: a small tightness, a wish to look away. That feeling is the doorway. You don't have to walk through it today. You only have to see it.

Try it for yourself

A short reflection

Think of one thing you've been putting off. Not the biggest, a modest one. Hold it in mind and notice what happens in your body and in your thoughts. Is there a tightness? A story, like I'll do it when I feel like it? Name what you notice, silently, without judging it. Take two and a half minutes.

One question to write about

What are you putting off, and what does it feel like to think of it?

You can reflect without writing. Nothing you think or write on this page is collected.

Recording transcript

This text follows the recorded narration. Source credits for the quoted passage appear above.

Welcome. Putting things off is rarely laziness. It's usually a feeling we'd rather not have yet. Over six short days, we'll practise starting small. Today, we just notice the word later. From On the Shortness of Life, an essay by the Roman Stoic Seneca, in Aubrey Stewart's translation of 1889. You dispose of that which is in the hand of Fortune, and you let go that which is in your own. Whither are you looking, whither are you stretching forward? everything future is uncertain: live now straightway. Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, section 9. Seneca is writing about whole lives, but the pattern is the same on a small scale. We hand today's time to a future self, whom we assume will be more energetic and less busy. That self rarely arrives. Notice the feeling just before you postpone something: a small tightness, a wish to look away. That feeling is the doorway. You don't have to walk through it today. You only have to see it. Think of one thing you've been putting off. Not the biggest, a modest one. Hold it in mind and notice what happens in your body and in your thoughts. Is there a tightness? A story, like I'll do it when I feel like it? Name what you notice, silently, without judging it. Take two and a half minutes. What are you putting off, and what does it feel like to think of it? That's enough for today. Tomorrow, we look at why the first minute is the hardest.

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