I'll Start Tomorrow 

By E. P. Foster | October 25 , 2026

Saturday morning. Coffee in hand. A whole day ahead of me.

I've got things to do. Laundry, a few chores around the house, maybe work on one of my books or record something for the podcast. Nothing particularly overwhelming. Just a few things I'd like to accomplish.

But first, I'll sit down for a few minutes.

I turn on the television, pick up my phone, and start scrolling.

Before long, I glance at the clock. It's 9:47.

I'll get started at ten.

Ten o'clock comes around, and I decide ten-thirty would be just as good.

At ten-thirty, I figure there's no sense starting something when it's almost lunchtime.

By two o'clock, I've negotiated more extensions with myself than a contractor working on a government project.

And somewhere around five, I make the most familiar promise of all.

I'll start tomorrow.

The funny thing is, I don't particularly enjoy spending the day this way. I've watched television, scrolled through my phone, probably had my iPad sitting in my lap at the same time, and accomplished absolutely nothing.

Yet somehow, if I had spent thirty minutes reading a book, I would have felt guilty about wasting time.

Figure that one out.

I've been thinking about this lately, and I've come to realize that my relationship with accomplishment is a little strange.

I've always considered myself a procrastinator. I put things off. I wait until the last minute. I tell myself I'll get to something later.

And yet, when I look back over my life, I've rarely stopped working.

I had three paper routes when I was a kid. At sixteen, I worked at McDonald's and picked up odd jobs. During my military service, I worked another job outside my regular duties. Later, I worked while going to school and raising a family.

Just last year, I was working full-time and part-time, finishing my MBA, recording podcasts, and writing a book.

You would think I'd look back on all that and feel like I'd accomplished something.

Most of the time, I don't.

And during a recent conversation, I realized something about myself that I hadn't really considered before.

Somewhere along the way, I started measuring my accomplishments by how much money they produced.

Finish an MBA? Wonderful. Now, how much more money will it help me earn?

Write a book? Great. How many copies have I sold?

Record a podcast? That's nice. Is it making any money?

It's a peculiar way to measure a life, especially when I consider why I started writing and podcasting in the first place.

I wanted to do something I enjoyed. Something meaningful. Something that might connect with another person who was dealing with the same questions I was.

In fact, I was about to tell someone recently that I'd happily write books, record podcasts, and maybe even speak to audiences whether I got paid or not.

Then it occurred to me.

I'm already doing all those things without getting paid.

Well, that certainly settled that argument.

But it also made me wonder how many things I've accomplished that I've never really allowed myself to appreciate.

When I finished my MBA, I was proud of myself.

For about a minute.

Then I started thinking about what the degree was supposed to do for me financially.

There was always something else. Another goal. Another responsibility. Another thing I needed to accomplish before I could finally sit back and feel satisfied.

And maybe that's part of why I have such a difficult time doing nothing.

When I sit down on Saturday morning, I'm not simply thinking about the laundry or the dishes.

I'm thinking about the books I haven't finished. The things I want to build. The opportunities I might be missing. The years that seem to pass a little faster than they used to.

I'm 57 years old, and I'm still trying to figure things out.

Actually, that's not quite right.

I'm still trying to figure out life.

I suppose when I was seventeen, I assumed people my age had everything figured out. They were adults. They had jobs, homes, families, and responsibilities. Surely, by the time you reached your fifties, you knew what you were doing.

Well, here I am.

If anyone knows when that particular revelation is supposed to arrive, I'd appreciate a heads-up.

But I don't think this feeling belongs to any particular generation.

At seventeen, you're wondering what your life is going to become.

At thirty-five, you might be wondering whether you're headed in the right direction.

At fifty-seven, you may be looking at everything you've done and wondering what comes next.

And I suspect that even at ninety-seven, there are still things about life that leave you scratching your head.

Maybe we're all waiting for that moment when everything finally makes sense.

When the bills are paid, the work is finished, the dreams have been realized, and we can sit down without feeling there's something else we should be doing.

I don't know if that moment ever comes.

What I do know is that I've spent an awful lot of time thinking about what I haven't accomplished while giving very little thought to what I have.

And I've spent more than a few Saturdays promising myself that tomorrow will be different.

Maybe it will.

Maybe I'll get up early, finish the chores, work on my novel, and record that podcast.

Or maybe I'll sit down with a cup of coffee, turn on the television, and pick up my phone.

I haven't figured that part out yet, either.

But I'm beginning to wonder whether I need to stop treating every unfinished task as evidence that I'm somehow falling behind in life.

After all, life isn't something we're waiting to begin once we've checked everything off our lists.

It's happening right now.

Even on those Saturdays when we don't accomplish a thing.

And perhaps, once in a while, I ought to pick up that book and read for half an hour.

Without feeling guilty about it.

I'll work on that.

Tomorrow.