97. Inertia

Inertia sounds like the name of a newly privatised energy company. If it was, you wouldn't want to get your energy from them. In real life, inertia is what stops things happening and it's the driving force behind procrastination.

Procrastination is vertical gravity. It is a powerful force that prevent us getting on with things. This force is particularly evident in beds, armchairs and offices, where it can keep things not happening for hours if not days. Entry-level procrastination is when you put something today that you could quite easily do tomorrow. Advanced procrastination is when you put off the putting-off until tomorrow.

For every season to do something, there are six reasons not to do it. Trying to think of a seventh is the seventh. In the workplace, more than half the cups of tea and coffee consumed in the average day are made to avoid doing something more important. With meetings, roughly half are to avoid actual work. In fact, a good few jobs are there to avoid life itself being lived.