stains
The moment a stain is created, it begins to react with the fabric, dyes, finishes, and atmosphere.
If you clean it right away, it’s generally very easy to address.
If you wait, the stain has time to ‘set’ through the reactions mentioned and as a result, becomes substantially more difficult to address.
You’re not dropping everything to clean a ‘fresh’ stain because it’s actually big a problem at the moment, you’re cleaning it right away precisely because it’s not a big problem yet.
The same thinking should apply to present problems of any kind.
Maybe a problem doesn’t seem like a big deal now, so there’s no urgency.
But if you shift your perspective to what it could become in time, you may suddenly find the proper motivation to address it sooner.
One of the most effective ways to buy future time and energy back is by dealing with growing problems while they’re still small.