Time and time again, I've faced situations in which I have to talk about being on time, avoid delay and suchlike. Well, there are many useful verbs which you can use to express your thoughts, however sometimes it becomes tricky, at least for me. In this question, I've aggregated some related questions with each other to avoid asking many very similar questions. All in all, between the following sentences which ones are natural and formal or informal? In each sentence I've highlighted the controversial[!] part by showing it in bold.
- "We should always make sure we never allow/let any delay in finishing our homework/project."
- "I never procrastinate with my study/project/job/homework"
- "I never delay/defer my study/project/job/homework"
Best Answer
Idiomatically, you'd be most likely to use...
Note that put off is (very slightly) "informal" by comparison with procrastinate, but mostly that's because the latter is a relatively unusual usage in this context (it might be better described as "facetious" and/or "pseudo-intellectual/pretentious" here).
It's grammatically valid to say you don't procrastinate with/over/about/regarding/etc. homework, but there's no particular standard as to which preposition works best there. Usually the specific activity being deferred is contextually implied, not explicitly stated and linked to the verb procrastinate.
...but...
In OP's context, including an extra (negated) verb such as don't let/allow simply implies that the thing counselled against (procrastination, here) would be likely to happen if you didn't actively make an effort to prevent it (plus of course it implies you have the ability to prevent it happening, by making that effort). The syntax of the two verbs is different...
...but further details on that should probably be addressed as a separate question.