I am Always Late

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.