Proverb: Не откла́дывай на за́втра то, что мо́жно сде́лать сего́дня

This proverb is a tidy package of four B1-level structures, and unlike most sayings it sounds completely modern — you could put it in an email about deadlines today. It opens with a negative imperfective imperative (the standard "don't do X"), uses на + accusative to mean "until / for" a future time, threads in the correlative free-relative то, что ("that which / what"), and ends with the impersonal modal мо́жно plus a perfective infinitive. Parse those four and you've covered a good slice of practical Russian: how to forbid, how to schedule, how to say "what(ever)", and how to say "can / it's possible to". We'll read it whole, dismantle it word by word, then put it to use.

The proverb

The backbone is a command — don't postpone — with the correlative pair то, что hanging off it: "don't put off until tomorrow that which can be done today." It is the textbook proverb against procrastination, and the Russian is almost word-for-word the English.

Word by word

Не откла́дывай — "don't put off" (negative imperfective imperative)

The command is не + imperfective imperative, the default shape for telling someone not to do something. откла́дывать ("to put off, postpone, set aside") is the imperfective member of the pair откла́дывать / отложи́ть, and откла́дывай is its imperative; with не it becomes a general prohibition — "don't (be in the habit of) putting things off".

The imperfective is the right choice because the proverb forbids a general practice — procrastinating, as a recurring habit, at all times. A negated perfective imperative (Не отложи́! ) would warn against one specific deferral on one occasion, often with a "careful, don't slip" tone. For a timeless rule about how to live, the imperfective не откла́дывай is exactly right. (This is the same logic you saw in Не руби́ сук…: proverbial prohibitions go imperfective.)

на за́втра — "until / for tomorrow" (на + accusative of time)

Here на governs the accusative and means "until / for" a future point — the time to which something is deferred. The crucial contrast: на + prepositional marks location (на столе́ "on the table"), but на + accusative marks direction or a target time (на за́втра "for tomorrow / until tomorrow"). With откла́дывать the idea is "to push the task forward onto tomorrow", so the accusative-of-target sense fits.

за́втра ("tomorrow") is indeclinable — it's an adverb that here functions as the object of на, and it simply doesn't change its form. So the case marking is carried entirely by the construction, not by any visible ending on за́втра. The matching phrases are everywhere in scheduling: отложи́ть встре́чу на понеде́льник "to push the meeting to Monday", перенести́ на сле́дующую неде́лю "to move it to next week".

то, что — "that which / what" (the correlative free-relative)

This is the structural keystone. то is a demonstrative pronoun ("that, that thing"), and что is the relative pronoun ("which / what"). Together то, что form a correlative pair that means "that which" = "what(ever)". The то is the head — the object inside the main clause — and the relative clause "что мо́жно сде́лать сего́дня" describes it: literally "don't put off that which one can do today", smooth English "what you can do today".

Two case facts to lock in, each set independently:

• то is the accusative object of откла́дывай ("don't put off what? — то"). Since то is neuter, its accusative looks like the nominative — but it is grammatically the object of the main verb.
• что is also accusative, but for its own reason: it's the object of сде́лать inside the relative clause ("one can do what? — что"). Again neuter, so the form doesn't visibly change — but the two accusatives answer to two different verbs.

The comma before что is obligatory in Russian: every relative clause is set off by a comma, with no exceptions. English drops "that/which" and the comma in this sentence; Russian keeps both the correlative то and the comma.

мо́жно сде́лать — "one can do / it's possible to do" (impersonal modal + perfective infinitive)

The relative clause ends with мо́жно + сде́лать. мо́жно is an impersonal modal word meaning "it is possible / one may / one can". It is not a verb and never conjugates: there is no subject in the nominative — the construction is impersonal ("it is possible to…"). If you want to name who can do it, that person goes in the dative (мне мо́жно "I may"), but the proverb leaves it open: anyone can do it. After мо́жно comes an infinitive.

And the infinitive is perfective — сде́лать (from де́лать / сде́лать "to do"), not the imperfective де́лать. This matters. With мо́жно, the perfective infinitive says the thing can be done and completed — a finished result is achievable: "what one can get done today". An imperfective (мо́жно де́лать) would mean "one may be doing it / it's permitted to do it as an activity" — about the process or permission, not the achievable result. The proverb is about getting things finished, so the perfective сде́лать is precisely the point.

за́втра / сего́дня — the time adverbs

The two time adverbs anchor the antithesis: за́втра ("tomorrow", the bad option) versus сего́дня ("today", the good one). Both are indeclinable adverbs of time. A note on сего́дня: it's spelled with г but pronounced with a в — sevodnya — a famous spelling-vs-pronunciation quirk (the same г-as-в you see in genitive endings like его́, said yevo). The contrast tomorrow-vs-today is the whole moral, compressed into the two adverbs at the ends of the line.

Meaning and when to use it

The proverb means: do today what can be done today; don't procrastinate. It is the direct Russian equivalent of the English "don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today" — almost a calque, so it needs no cultural decoding. It frames procrastination as simple folly: a task you could finish now should not be pushed into the uncertain future.

You use it to:

• nudge yourself or someone else to stop delaying a manageable task;
• justify doing something now rather than later ("Сде́лаю сейча́с — не откла́дывай на за́втра…");
• gently scold a habitual procrastinator.

It is neutral in register — equally natural in a chat with a friend, a manager's reminder, or a motivational article. The first half, «Не откла́дывай на за́втра…», often stands alone, the rest understood.

Using it in context

Vocabulary gloss

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Не откла́дывай is the negative imperfective imperative — the default for a general prohibition; the perfective (не отложи́) would warn against one specific deferral.
• на + accusative marks the target time something is deferred to (на за́втра "till tomorrow"); за́втра is indeclinable. Contrast locational на + prepositional (на столе́).
• то, что is the correlative free-relative "that which / what": то is the object of the main verb, что the object inside the relative clause — each in its own case; the comma before что is obligatory.
• мо́жно is an impersonal modal ("one can"): no nominative subject, doer (if any) in the dative; here with a perfective infinitive (сде́лать) it means an achievable, finished result.
• Meaning: do today what can be done today — the Russian "don't put off till tomorrow…"; often clipped to just «Не откла́дывай на за́втра…».