 English Proverbs Don't put off till tomorrow. Complete the proverb. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do now, today, already. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. That means don't wait until tomorrow to do something that you should do today. Put off here means delay. What's the difference among these words? They seem to have similar meanings, delay, put off, procrastinate, and postpone. Well, delay and put off are more neutral in connotation or special meaning. Procrastinate is very negative in its meaning, and postpone can be somewhat positive. Let me explain. The words put off and delay can be used to mean procrastinate or postpone. However, procrastinate and postpone do not have the same meaning. Procrastinate means a person is lazy or unwilling to do the work. Postpone means you delay something on purpose or for a good reason. What's the difference in usage or grammar? Day can be followed by an object or a gerund, as can put off or put something off. However, procrastinate is almost always followed by a gerund or verb-ing form. Postpone can be followed by an object or a gerund. Let's look at some examples. I put off my homework. This is a simple object. I put off doing my homework. Doing is the gerund, verb-ing form. I procrastinated doing my homework. That's with the gerund. We don't say I procrastinated my homework with the simple object. We postponed having the meeting. Or we postponed the meeting. Both gerund and object are okay with postponed. Here's a special note. Procrastinate can be used without an object. For example, we say Jan always procrastinates. But we don't say Jan always puts off. Puts off what? We need to have an object there. Same thing with Jan always postpones. We need to have an object. We need to tell what she postpones. To learn more about this topic, click on the link above. Or check out our websites for more free English learning resources, eslgoal.com and freeenglishstudy.com.