I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection. — 1 Cor. ix. 26, 27.

THE slack, indolent temperament, dispose to self-indulgence and delay, will find very practical and helpful discipline in strict punctuality, a fixed habit of rising to the minute, when once a time is settled on; in being always ready for meals, or the various daily matters in which our unpunctuality makes other uncomfortable. Persons have found their whole spiritual life helped and strengthened by steadfastly conquering a habit of dawdling, or of reading newspapers and desultory bits of books, when they ought to be settling about some duty.
H. L. Sidney Lear

Let us “redeem the time.” Desultory working, fitful planning, irregular reading, ill-assorted hours, perfunctory or unpunctual execution of business, hurry and bustle, loitering and unreadiness, — these, and such like, are the thing which take out the whole pith and power from life, which hinder holiness, and which eat like a canker into our moral being.
HORATIUS BONAR