“Next time.”

“I’ll take care of that next time.”

“I’ll work on it next time.”

“I’ll make sure that happens next time.”

When we do something and learn from it, knowing we can improve when we do it again, that’s a great use of “next time.”

But when we already know we could do better and we don’t, putting the improvement off until another day, that’s not such a great use of “next time.” It sounds a little like, “I won’t take care of that now, even though I could.”

How does “next time” show up for you?