This phrase suggests that you should get to do the tasks you want to accomplish when you think it is already too late. You procrastinated a lot and you reached to a point where you "think" there is no return but guess what? This saying tells you that there is. There is always a chance to accomplish things.
There is always something in people's lives that they wanted to do and they thought it was "too late" to do it like learning a new skill or continuing education to reach higher levels of learning.
The word "Better" and "Never" in this phrase have a connection with each other. It means that you should do it when you fully understand that you need to do it and it is "better" that not doing it at all (Never).
"Late" in this phrase means you accepted or you acknowledged that for what you want to do, there is little time, but there is time and you can try to do it successfully in that short amount of time.
I think this procrastination arises several negative emotions in people, which I will discuss further below. Moreover, this phrase suggests a sort of urgency in the matter that also brings about negative emotions, because it tells you that you should hurry up.
- Failure: You think that if you start doing it, you will miserably fail or something unexpected happens that makes you really sad or surprised. The "what ifs" eat away your mind.
- Regret: This emotion arises when you actually fail to do it. You regret it because you should have done something sooner. For whatever reason you postponed any action and look what it got you. You accomplished nothing.
- Guilt: You were responsible for something and you blew it by not taking action towards it. You did nothing to bring about result and that's why you feel guilt for not being responsible enough regarding the situation.
- Anxiety: You had a mission, a task, and all the time of procrastinating to do it, it made you filled with anxiety of both when you don't do it or when you do it. You think both scenarios makes you anxious so you position yourself in a limbo land and keep procrastinating.
- Frustration: You feel irritated and impatient because you are late. This in turn makes you pinpoint to yourself why you are not doing it and that makes you even more frustrated.
- Embarrassment: You think about what other will think of you if you don't accomplish the task at hand. If you do good you will be admired and if you fail to accomplish it, you will get criticized for not winning and so they label you a "winner" or a "loser".
- Anger: You become angry and you question everything about the situation. You put the situation under a microscope and blame yourself for not taking any action.
- Resentment: When it becomes late enough to do the task, you feel resentment of yourself. A feeling that is not pleasant specially when you are killing more time and your time soon will be up.
- Disappointment: You think this delay has caused you to lose an opportunity that otherwise could be beneficial to you either financially or emotionally or other important areas of your life.
- Insecurity: You doubt yourself, you think this task is somehow not easy to do so you don't do it. The security you feel about yourself is challenged by this task and so you try to avoid it as much as possible.