I am Always Late

In many cases, chronic lateness develops from inability of a person to stay focused and being ready to becoming more organized. That is why such person is always late, forgets keys and files, forgets to return calls and arrive at meetings, confuses the dates of the appointments and so on. If you are one of those who have problems focusing and keeping tings in mind, here are a few useful tips for you.

• At work, try to keep all your papers in special files with separators. Also, have a special file for all the papers which should be reviewed or corrected. Make a habit of tidying up your table before leaving office every evening.
• At home, try to organize everything and keep everything you use frequently in the same fixed places: your keys, your glasses, your documents and your remote control.
• Keep the things you are using frequently and those things which you do not use frequently in separated places. This way you will save your time for looking for something when you are in a  hurry.
• Make a habit of getting ready for tomorrow’s meeting or appointment in the evening. Gather the things you’ll need and prepare your suit or dress.
• Always keep spare keys or gasses at a place you know for the case if you happened to lose those.
• Make your cellular phone be your companion, this way you will always be able to access Internet, use GPRS system in order not to get lost and call you friends for a help.
• Create a print out several copies of a list of the phone numbers and addresses of your friends, colleagues and emergency services.
• Always be aware about what time is it now and how much time have you spent for doing one or another activity during the day.

My mom is not a latecomer, but she has one of the most dangerous predispositions to this problem. She is an extreme workaholic and there’s nothing she hates more than “wasting” her time for waiting in a queue in the market or at the bus stop. She is very rarely late because she is very good about estimating how much time she needs for doing this or that. But those people, who are usually too optimistic about their time can’t avoid becoming chronic latecomers.

Such kind of people often fall into the same trap again and again. If once upon a time it took them, for example, 5 or 10 minutes to get ready for going out, they start believing that it is normal to plan only 5 minutes for getting ready to go out at any circumstances. But they are forgetting that in that fine day the breakfast was ready, the dress was prepared in the evening and there was no need in looking for winter bots or umbrella.

How to beat the lateness caused by inability to do correct time estimations and desire to pack as many activities as possible in the time given? I would suggest trying to get rid of these two problems separately and consequently. First, try to learn being realistic in your time estimations. Use watches and timers, and measure the time you need to accomplish one or another task or activity. Write down your findings and compare them to the ones you received before: this way you’ll know how much time you need for the things you do every day.

Also, pay more attention on scheduling your daily activities and doing only the things that should be or would better be done. Spending your time for unnecessary or unimportant things – this is a real wasting of your priceless time. By the way, if you hate spending time waiting for someone and that’s why you are never on time, plan some useful things to do while waiting. Make calls to your friends, do some planning or write letters, listen to audio books or learn a foreign language. How many useful and interesting activities can be done while waiting for someone!

Finally, you should give up the idea of being on time and always plan to be a little earlier. If you plan to be on time, something will definitely come up in the last minute, and the same old thing will happen again. Instead, you can schedule some things or activities, which are not urgent or of less importance, so if you really happened to have time before going out, you can do these things. Try to change your attitude towards your time and the time other people spend waiting for you, and you’ll be able to become more punctual and earn more respect of your friends and colleagues.