I am Always Late

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.

Not many people are always punctual at work. On average, business people are running behind their schedules for 3-10 minutes, but still they are considered to be quite punctual. Being always late or unable to complete your tasks on time creates a lot of pressure and causes a great number of stresses at work. Therefore, below you can find easy recommendations for those who want to change their approach and be more punctual.

1. Try to find out what exactly causes your tardiness. Why do you leave your house late every morning? Why are you always late with your projects and tasks? Maybe, those are unnecessary drives and urges you can’t resist? Or can it be your habit to stay in bed till the last moment? Monitor you daily activities closely and try to spot 2-4 things that cause you running behind the schedule again and again.

2. Change your attitude. Accept your tardiness as a bad habit that you need to get rid of and get ready for making changes in your behavior. Understand the reasons and get motivated for a hard work on self-disciplining. Start thinking in a rational manner and avoid impulsive actions.

3. Think about the risks connected with your being late and tardy. Understand that the consequences of your tardiness can be really negative and disappointing. Your reputation in the eyes of your colleagues and bosses will not be high, and this can seriously lower your chances of promotion and advancement. Also, the tasks and projects you are involved in will be associated with stresses and late delivery. What to say about possible disciplinary actions and low self-esteem.

4. Learn to plan and prioritize your activities. Planning is something that can help you to become more organized. Also, you should learn to understand, what must be done right away, what is important and has to be done soon, and what should not be done at all. Plan and schedule your tasks and actions even if your day is not too busy. This way you’ll turn planning and scheduling into a habit.

5. Think about the responsibility. Being punctual is closely linked to respect to the time and efforts of other people, to being more responsible and successful, to self-development and personal improvement day by day. Remember that punctuality will bring you excellent reward, today and tomorrow.

Punctuality is something that has been highly valued and esteemed for centuries. “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late,” Shakespeare wrote, and Lord Nelson opens his secret to us, “I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my time.” “Punctuality is a virtue, if you don’t mind being lonely”, somebody wise said, and in our life filled with communication, social activities, friendly ties and obligations, punctuality is simply a must!

Since our early age, we are being taught punctuality by our parents, our teachers and our friends. It becomes apparent that if we do not follow this simple practice of being always on time and never making other people wait for us, we will most likely have problems and suffer in our academic, professional, social and personal life. It is impossible to cover up and hide this nasty habit of being always late from the people around us since they will sooner or later be involved in the negative consequences caused by our tardiness and lack of punctuality.

Usually, punctuality is strictly linked to very effective planning and scheduling skills. If a person is not able to estimate correctly the time necessary for completing one or another task or action, he or she will be constantly late and have to face such failures as missed opportunities, lost friendships and unachieved goals. In other words, if you are not punctual, you are a loser, and the best idea is to demonstrate punctuality in every part of your life, from getting to work on time to going to bed on time.

However, it is really hard sometimes, and chronic latecomers are constantly looking for advice on how to change their life and their attitude. To be more punctual, start controlling your daily activities an find the point, when you are starting to run behind the schedule. This can be getting up late and staring the day with missing your bus and arriving to work late, or waking up too eary and being unable to pull yourself together for hours in the morning. Try to spot the first thing that makes you late, and changing it can help you to become more disciplined and punctual.

Also, analyze your daily activities closely and find out what exact things or actions make you run late. There are good chances that you will be able to find 2-3 particular activities or occupations that take too much of your time and efforts and stop you from your being on time. Spending too much time surfing in the net in the morning, talking too much to the phone in the afternoon or doing so much shopping in the evening – whatever it is, you can start changing this very thing and open a new path on your way to being never late again.

As I have told you before, I know quite a lot of things about being late and being late no more because just few years ago I myself was a kind of latecomer. And, using my knowledge and willpower I managed to beat the habit and win the battle. Now, I rarely run behind the schedules, but still sometimes I feel familiar calls for lazing and doing nothing for long time. I guess, being late no more is not about self-discipline or self-respect. It is about achieving your goals. It is about the things that you need to think about all the time, every day and every minute. If you want to achieve something in this life, of course.

There are few important ideas and conclusions I made on my way to becoming a more punctual person. I hope at least some of them can help you to change something in yourself, or at least begin thinking about being late no more.

1. Learn to speak persuasively and prepare several phrases which can help you to interrupt a meeting or a talk. “I am very sorry but I have to our talk because I have a meeting in 20 minutes”. It is not easy to learn doing this, but making your person understand that you are following your schedule evokes nothing else but respect.

2. Always be pessimistic in your time estimations. Be sure that one or another task will take longer than it usually takes. This will help you learn finishing your tasks and assignments on time, and probably even come earlier. Also, it is important that this will help you be calmer and more organized.

3. You can stimulate the development of guilt complex for your being late. Imagine that a person who is waiting for us feels cold or hot and uncomfortable waiting for you.

4. If you are always successful in justifying yourself for your chronic lateness, it can be very hard for you to change your habits and learn to be late never again. Do not look for justifications and try to implant the idea in your mind about changing your attitude and learning to be more organized and disciplined.

5. Do easy exercises for those who want to be late no more. First if all, learn to estimate and feel the time correctly. Get a timer, start it and begin counting 60 seconds (not looking at the timer). Compare the results you received (most likely your 60 seconds will last longer than actual minute). Besides, you can train yourself to be always aware, what is the current time. These easy exercises will help you to feel time better and value it.

As I have already said, many of those people who are chronically late or tardy have a tendency to justify their behavior by various outside factors. In other words, it is difficult for them to be honest with themselves and recognize the problem. That is why they go on looking for reasons and making up excuses for their improper behavior. However, there are times or certain situations, when these people start feeling sad or embarrassed because of their chronic tardiness. In such moments, there’s a great opportunity for them to begin working on changing their personality and giving up bad habit of being always late.

If you are one of those tarides, you should try changing your chronic tardiness and lateness in three steps. According to Diana Delonzor, the best option for you is to begin with monitoring closely your daily activities and write down, how many times you were late due to really important outside reasons and influences. Then, the expert recommends to recall all those regretful and embarrassing moments connected with your being late, as well as numerous uncompleted tasks, wrong steps, missed opportunities, canceled projects and so on. In order to acknowledge the problem you should fully understand negative consequences of your tardiness and lateness.

The second step is changing your mind and attitude toward punctuality. You should understand that being always late is nothing else but your personal choice, which takes source from the way you precept this world and look at your environment. To change your idea about chronic lateness and punctuality, you should look at the situation with the eyes of other people. Would you like the others making you wait all the time or breaking their promises? Will you still value and respect such people? It can be helpful to talk about your problem with someone you trust, with  a good friend or a relative who can give you an objective feedback on your usual behavior.

Finally, the third step is going into action and starting making some practical changes in your life. Rewarding yoruself for every successful attempt of not being late  is one of the most effective practical techniques, which can be generally used wen trying to change any bad behavior. Besides, you can punish youself every time when you are not punctual. For example, you can say your friends that you will pay for their meals every time you are late for a meeting or a party. This technique may work real great! Finally, you can ask people around you to assist and encourage you when you manage to be on time. Positive reaction of the people you love can be an excellent motivator for you to start changing yourself more effectively.

Those who are always running late are quite interesting people. Like for the majority of drinkers or smokers, it is also difficult for chronic latecomers to acknowledge their lateness as a bad habit. Certainly: they got used to being constantly accused in their tardiness and procrastination, and also they have perfectly mastered the art of creating never ending excuses for their being always late. That is why they try to make an impression of chronic victims of the circumstances. Ask a tardy, why is he/she late again? Most likely, you will hear something like “No, no, I was not running late, but then…”

At that, this phenomenon does not always mean that the person is not troubled by his/her chronic lateness. It is a common knowledge that tardiness and being chronically late is something negative. The tardies know so well that being always late means disrespect to other people’s time and failure to meet their expectations. They know that chronic tardiness can seriously affect the career development and social life. So, late folks hate being reminded that they are always late and hate being reminded about that when they are called ‘latecomers’ or ‘chronically late people’. Instead, we can call them ‘punctually challenged’, or those who have continuous problems with punctuality and being on time.

This effective term was defined by Diana DeLonzor, an experienced time management specialist, in her book Never Be Late Again, 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged as the following: “Punctually Challenged [means] having the inexplicable ability to arise at six, yet still be late at work at nine“. DeLonzor is convinced that chronic lateness is a very nasty habit which is really hard to overcome. In her book, she uses a bright comparison of punctually challenged people with those who suffer from overeating. Just like those, who are on diet, have to fight their temptation to eat cakes and cookies, chronic latecomers have to fight against their “… temptation to do one last thing before leaving the house. Resisting that sudden urge to make the bed, unload the dishwasher, water the plants, or finish a newspaper article can be nearly impossible“, she writes.

Unfortunately, as we already know, being always late or punctually challenged is not only about punctuality and time management. Changing a bad habit is something like peeling the onion: you start removing the upper layer and see many more other layers coming. While trying to fix your problem with punctuality, you can face the problem of effective time management, time perception, chronic procrastination or simple laziness. There are few strategies and tactics which can be used for breaking a bad habit, but all of them are connected with making lots of efforts, lots of  patience and willpower. However, it is really worth to spend your time and mental power for building a new yourself and giving up looking for those endless excuses and apologies for chronic lateness.

After we have acknowledged the problem of perpetual lateness and analyzed own negative behavioral patterns that lead to tardiness and being always late, it is time to learn more about the techniques and specific tactics that must be helpful in our situation and will really work! Breaking a bad habit requires a complex approach, that is why we are going to start fighting with our slowness and tardiness by working on this problem in several directions. Moreover, many specialists suggest developing good habits instead of bad ones, and we will definitely try to follow this great piece of advice as well.

Chronic procrastination is the first negative habit of ours that frequently brings us to being late and slow in our daily activities. Many people have a tendency to put important things off and frequently try to escape from daily chores or other activities. There are various reasons why we procrastinate, and also there are different tactics that can help us to break this terrible habit. All the materials related to procrastination you can find in the related category of our site.

Effective self organization is impossible without developing good time management skills. There is a great deal of programs and strategies created for the people who need to advance their time management skills, learn how to plan and organize their time. Time management also helps us to improve our performance and productivity, have more time for leisure and rest, reduce stresses and understand that we posses our time but not time possesses us. All my recommendations and practical advice regarding effective time management are presented in Time Management category.

Finally, the hardest and the most challenging part of this personal improvement program is extinguishing such terrible habit of ours as laziness. When we try to do something, we always face Her Majesty Laziness. She is our subtle enemy that does not allow us to reveal our talents, fulfill ourselves and achieve the success we deserve to achieve. Everybody knows what I am talking about, and in order to fight with laziness, we will have to work hard on our self discipline and self organization. See the materials in the related category.

Finally, we came to the third question you need to ask yourself before you start working on your punctuality and abilities to manage your time effectively. Ask yourself: why do I need to change my behavior and do everything possible to stop my being chronically late? Why do I want it now and why have I never wanted this before? If it is not the first attempt of yours to fight with chronic lateness, then ask yourself: why have I failed before? Was I not too patient or didn’t I have enough of willpower? Also, ask yourself, are you ready for this hard struggle against your bad habits? Finally, make it clear for yourself, what kind of reward you will have in case if your performance is good and your negative habits are gone with the wind.

Practical experience of many specialists in time management shows that having a worthy goal and a strong and clear motivation for giving up a habit of being chronically late is a very important stimulating factor which usually brings to achieving very good results. Let me tell you a story: there was a guy, an incorrigible latecomer, who was always depressed and never cared about his own life. He has forgotten the ambitions of his youth and was spending his time as an accountant in a small private lawyer’s office. Together with his wife, they used to manage to make ends meet, but everything the family could afford is going to their vacation once a year.

However, one day he met one of his old friends, a successful businessman in his late 30s, who offered our loser a new occupation. “I remember that you were always very good in creative arts”, the businessman said, “so join my designer’s team and get a taste of real life.” This was a new beginning for the former accountant, who very soon proved to be absolutely great in designing interiors and decorating apartments. One of the first things he learned was being always on time for his meetings with the clients, otherwise his incomes would not be that impressive. Less then in one year he bought a prestigious house for his family, and the next summer he paid for his sons’ vacation in Europe.

Certainly, breaking any habit requires recognition of the problem, recognition that the habit is bad and having a strong desire to extinguish it. Take your time and think more, in what ways your chronic lateness affects your life? Didn’t you feel embarrassed and responsible for the negative effects of your habit on the life of the people around you? How many interesting things and activities you have failed to do due to your habit to procrastinate and put the things off? How many opportunities you have missed and how many of those you will possibly miss in the future? Find the answers on these questions and convince yourself that you need to get rid of your perpetual lateness and procrastination.

Maybe your reason is not too clear for you yet – it is fine. But remember that having a great long-run objective is the most important reason to start working on your punctuality and the most effective stimulative factor for our success. Get support from your friends and close people, visualize possible rewards for your persistence and willpower. Finally, value your future! The changes you will experience in your life are really worth the efforts you are going to spend for breaking you chronic bad habits, but if you do not really want to change your tendency to be always late, do not even spend your time for reading these pages. If you are ready for immediate action, have a steady unbated perseverance and feel strong enough to start our journey – follow me…

The second question you need to answer is: why are you always late? What is(are) the most probable reason(s) of your being late all the time, no matter how important your meeting is or how badly your boyfriend usually gets angry after waiting for you for hours. In order to answer to this question you have to analyze your behavior and your personal approach to the things you usually do. Be honest with yourself!

Undoubtedly, the leading reason of being always late is inability to estimate own time and fit the things that must be done in the planned schedule. Many people are late because they do not know how to prioritize the things they need to do and, therefore, they frequently put off important visits, meetings or other activities. Or, on the contrary, they try to fit too many different things and tasks into one day. As a result, such people always have to rush in the last minute, be late again and again, and make up more and more excuses again and again. Knowing the basic skills of effective time management plus a strong desire to become more organized and punctual can help such people to solve their problem of being always late.

Some people (especially young ladies and women) are always late because they like attracting attention. When you are late for your lecture and have to enter the classroom after your Professor has already started delivering the lecture, everyone will definitely look at you. The same will happen if you are late for a party, for a theater play or for the official beginning of your working day in the office. Therefore, lack of other people’s attention in our daily life is another key reason of being chronically late.

In some situations, the reasons of our being late are in our subconscious. When a person is constantly late to some place, it can mean that he or she does not really want to go there. For example, you need to go to school, university or office, but there’s nothing but your daily routine waiting for you there. Or, you need to visit your aunt with her noisy children, who will turn your day into a real hell! So, if you need to do a thing you really do not want to do or go to a place you do not want to go to, your brain automatically starts generating the calls to delay doing this thing or delay the visit. And you automatically start doing something more “necessary” or more important (cleaning your room, preparing dinner for the whole family or doing your homework), which can justify your being late to somewhere.

In addition, many of us can be late because of feeling uncomfortable about being put into some limits or schedules. Some people hate being told, what exact time they have to come at, that is why being late is a form of protest against such “dictatorship”. For example, it’s a common idea to be late for work in order to show the boss that you do not really care about his schedules and defy his authority. If you belong to this type of latecomers, you need to think about possible outcomes of your behavior. Will it be good for you and should you ever dream about a promotion in the company, where you are known as a rebel-latecomer?

Finally, one more reason for late personalities to be always late is their neglect of other people’s time and a habit to treat people with disrespect. Such people are usually concentrated only on their own things and problems, giving no importance to time or their obligations. This behavior is frequently accompanied by laziness and obliviousness, and the latecomers of such origins are extremely hard to be changed.

Let’s suppose that you have already understood very well how serious can be the consequences of chronic lateness. This problem can really bring to very disappointing results. For example, you can be a good, experienced and well-qualified specialist, but if you are a chronic latecomer, your employer will definitely prefer another less qualified and proficient employee. Chronic lateness and tardiness always result in lost money, wasted time, missed opportunities, forgotten birthdays, lost friendships, hurt feelings, gone hopes, morale and psychological problems, and so on.

So, you have made up your mind to start the battle against your lateness and want to learn how to prioritize, schedule and handle all your work on time. In such case, we are in the beginning of an interesting journey, during which I will open you the secrets of effective self organization and time management. You must be wondering now, where do we start from? To begin with, you need to ask yourself three very important questions and give very thoughtful and considerate answers. The first question to be answered is: what type of a latecomer are you?

We all know that all people belong to the following groups:

• The people who are never late.
• The people who are late sometimes, mostly due to some serious circumstances, such as problems with transportation, a sickness, stresses or heavy load at work, etc.
• The people who usually come a little later to any sort of ordinary meetings or dates, but still can control their time and generally be on time for more important events.
• The chronic latecomers, who are late in 95-99% of the situations.

Unfortunately, within the last decades the share of the last two groups of people has been firmly increasing. If you are sure that you belong to the first two groups, I do not think that you need to change something in your behavior because you are simply not a latecomer. However, if you belong to the last two groups (especially to the fourth one), you have to get ready for a long way to self-improvement that will soon bring to great changes in your life and your attitude toward your own time.

Now, you can continue analyzing your behavior and looking for the answer on the question using some help from an experienced specialist. In a recently published bestseller “Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged”, Diana Delonzor, an expert in overcoming perpetual lateness, classifies chronic latecomers the following way:

• The Absent-Minded Professor: a person who lives in his or her own world and never thinks about time, who always forgets everything or can be distracted very easily. Such people are usually slow and leave their things here and there. They often jump from one activity to another or get lost in what they are doing.

• The Indulger: a procrastinator who has obvious lack of self-control and wastes the time for doing useless things. These people have no good concept of time and always put important things off that leads to chronic lateness.

• The Evader: a person who always feels the necessity to control own environment, and this idea makes him/her anxious. Such people have problems with self-organization, and their inability to do the things properly makes them feel helpless and stressed out. At that, the Evaders’ own needs or routine takes precedence over their being on time.

• The Deadliner: a person, who truly enjoys running behind the schedules and looks for a crisis to get motivated and win the battle. Adrenaline in the form of the last-minute sprint to the finish line is the best way for them to prove own importance: however, it always leads to being desperately late.

• The Rationalizer: a person who is very often late for work or meeting, but always justifies such behavior by various outside circumstances. Such people hate being reminded about their being late because they do not acknowledge their responsibility for lateness and blame everything or everyone but themselves. Usually, they are able to make up very realistic excuses for their lateness.

• The Producer: a very busy person who tends to squeeze incredible amount of tasks into every minute and do several things at the same time. They are always late because they can not properly schedule their time and have to go on doing something they have planned. Like the Rationalizers, many of the Producers also do not admit their fault for being late, because punctuality is not a priority in their life.

• The Rebel: a passive-aggressive type of people, who truly hate stereotypes, everyday rules and schedules. By being always late they try to resist authority and underline their courage of breaking the laws. For the Rebels, their tardiness is a form of demonstrating that they are in control of their own life.