This guide is a complete working treatment of civil timeliness for litigators on both sides and for anyone advising a client whose claim may already be stale. Part I explains the purposes limitations statutes serve and why those purposes predict how courts construe them. Part II covers claim characterization and the problem that identical facts frequently support claims with materially different periods. Part III works accrual, including the discovery rule, inquiry notice, and the claim-specific accrual rules for contract, warranty, professional negligence, constructive discharge, and indemnity. Part IV covers every tolling doctrine — statutory disabilities, supplemental jurisdiction tolling after Artis, fraudulent concealment, equitable estoppel, equitable tolling after Holland, continuing violations, and class action tolling after American Pipe and China Agritech. Part V covers statutes of repose and why they behave so differently. Part VI covers the pre-suit deadlines that quietly shorten claims: notice-of-claim statutes, certificates of merit, and administrative exhaustion. Parts VII through X cover relation back, choice of law and borrowing statutes, contractual and revival provisions, litigation practice on both sides, and the docketing discipline that prevents most legal malpractice.