Feeling as though you’re always running twenty minutes behind schedule is an unhappy feeling. Having to rush, forgetting things in your haste, dealing with annoyed people when you arrive… It’s no fun.
If you’re chronically late, what steps can you take to be more prompt? That depends on why you’re late. As my Eighth Commandment holds, the first step is to Identify the problem — then you can see more easily what you need to change.
There are many reasons you might be late, but some are particularly common. Are you late because…
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Gretchen, this is a great list and has helped me narrow down why I’m late.
I mostly try to get one last thing done (even if it’s something silly, like refreshing my email and writing a quick response to something) with a side salad of underestimating my commute time.
My whole life, I was always late and everyone in my family still is. I almost missed my own wedding because my mother and my sister were very late arriving…they still behave this way.
I am now a chronic early-bird and my secret is that I carefully estimate my schedule backward, starting from the time I need to be somewhere. It took me a long time to realize that my brain doesn’t work the other way. Life is much more pleasant now.
Good tips, and i think you hit my big ones. What is funny to me is that a lot of times, I used to be late ‘because of work” responsibilities. Now — good grief, I don’t have that excuse and with “all the time in the world,” sometimes am still late. Part of my problem now is that I often do not make a calendar note immediately, and do what KD says – list the event, then figure ‘backward’ from the time and date, the things you need to do to be ready on time. And i end up doing last minute things — because I don’t program myself to do things on a schedule… Your no. 6 comes into play – let’s paraphrase it as acknowledging how you really feel about your destination — as we all have to do unpleasant stuff, but might as well be honest about the feelings – and decide what to do, rather than just procrastinating even . Expert Procrastinator!
I’ve always been an early bird, it’s partly a MN trait I think. All that snow & the MN nice syndrome. When you put them together you think in terms of traffic, weather, the not “nice” to be “rude” and be late. I’ve live in the south for many years now, I’m still mostly an early bird, but have developed cronic pain that sometimes makes sleep impossible and I find I’d rather not go at all than be late! I really wonder though, which really is ruder? I think they both are. I do call and offer my apologies.
Nice categorisation! The first step to get on time is to really need to be on time. But you can’t make exercises when you must catch a plane, can you? The best way is to try to identify your reason for being late and make efforts – an adult is supposed to be able to do that!
My reason is somewhere on the way to the destination – commute time.
Short of an accident or real life emergency. It’s rude and irresponsible to be habitually late.
That is a very arrogant, narrow-minded view (list of only 2 reasons why tardiness should ever be acceptable or not label a person as “rude & irresponsible”.)
I have severe ADD that impacts my time-management, causing frequent tardiness… I guarantee that NO ONE is more upset, anxious or overwhelmed by guilt over this persistent problem than myself.
The assumption that I am simply being rude and selfish is entirely incorrect and simply exacerbates already high levels of guilt and shame.
I agree with BNSV in that the person who is tardy is often very hard on themselves/myself. Being critical without offering solutions is less than helpful and I don’t consider relevant to the intent of this article.
On a side note, I was raised with horrible role models for timeliness and it has taken me many years to get better. I am still chronically late (now only 3 minutes instead of 30). I think I fit into all the categories mentioned in the article. And I continue to endeavor to get better. Being on time for me is a herculean task which takes an immense amount of will power to overcome all my past programming. But I will persevere in spite of another person’s smugness at having been luckier with a better upbringing or emotional/neurological sameness with the “successful”.