The Cost of "I'll Do It Later"

About five months ago, I noticed a sort of bubble on the tire of my wife's Audi SUV. To many, it was an obvious red flag, something that should get fixed with some urgency. Apparently, to me, it was something that we could deal with another day, in the future, but not today.

Well, "today" came in the form of a dead flat tire at the start of a 3-hour drive on the way to visit family.

Turns out, if we don't address those things that we know need to be addressed, they somehow find a way to show up and bite us when we least expect or need them.

It wasn't that big of a deal, to be honest. I got a warning while driving down the highway that we had a flat tire, and I took the next exit. Upon inspection, it was obvious that this tire wasn't coming back to life, no matter how much air I pumped in it, and it was time for the experts to get involved. About an hour later, and $400 less, a gentleman named Jose showed up, and we were on our way again.

But it certainly could have been way worse. I could have been without cell service in a stretch of highway that was miles and miles away from the nearest exit. Worse yet, my family could have dealt with a blowout without me. The list goes on. It's never ideal to deal with car issues, especially ones that could have been solved a few months prior.

So why did I not get this "bubble" taken care of?

Well, probably a thing called life. We're all busy. Life goes at a speed that is often hard to slow down. It's much easier to put those unseen tasks off for another day and deal with them later, when things allegedly slow down. But alas, things aren't slowing down anytime soon, so the problems we punt today eventually land tomorrow.

If I am being honest, that tire bubble has shown up in my career more times than I would like to admit. It has shown up in the form of a difficult conversation that I knew needed to happen, but convinced myself could wait until after the next quarter closed. It has shown up as a quiet resentment about compensation that I chose to intellectualize instead of addressing directly.

It has shown up as burnout that I labeled as “just a busy season” rather than what it really was, which was a signal that something deeper was off. Just like that tire, the warning signs were visible, even obvious, but because the vehicle was still moving, I told myself everything was fine.

The reality is that most career blowouts do not happen out of nowhere. They build slowly. They start as small misalignments, subtle frustrations, and ignored instincts that whisper something is not right. You notice you are less energized in meetings. You start dreading Sunday evenings more than usual. You find yourself talking about your job with more sarcasm than pride.

None of those moments feels catastrophic on their own, so you keep driving, telling yourself that you will deal with it after the next promotion cycle, after the next bonus, after things calm down. And just like my highway exit with a dead flat, eventually the universe forces you to pull over.

I have worked with too many high performers who wait until the tire is shredded before they ask for help. They reach out when they are already interviewing out of desperation, already emotionally checked out, already resentful enough that every small inconvenience feels like proof that they are undervalued. It is much harder to make a thoughtful decision from that place.

When you wait until the blowout, your options narrow, your patience thins, and your judgment gets clouded by urgency rather than clarity. You are no longer choosing from strength; you are reacting from damage control.

What I have learned, sometimes the hard way, is that career maintenance is not dramatic, but it is essential. It looks like having the uncomfortable pay conversation before you are angry. It looks like reassessing your goals before you feel trapped. It looks like asking whether the road you are on still leads somewhere you actually want to go. None of that feels urgent in the moment, which is exactly why we postpone it, but postponement has a cost.

You can either schedule the repair when it is inconvenient, or you can deal with the breakdown when it is unavoidable, and I would much rather take the small pause on my terms than be forced to the side of the highway again, wondering why I ignored something that was clearly staring back at me months earlier.

by Scott Bond