Overcoming Chronic Lateness

Punctuality.

The bane of so many people's existence.

Lately I've been falling into a routine of running two or three minutes late. For pretty much everything. I always seem to be cutting it close, but couldn't work out why.

I always set out with the best of intentions. I know what time I need to leave the house in order to arrive on time, and I leave the house spot on when I intend to 9 times out of 10. So what is going wrong?

I was reading a book today written by a professional organiser, and sure enough, this book had the answer I was looking for. I have two habits that contribute to my chronic slightly lateness.

My first issue is that I forget to subtract time to get ready when I am planning my pre-departure activities. It's 5pm now, I need to leave for dinner at 7pm - so I have two hours available to do things, right? Wrong! A lot of late people don't subtract the time that it takes to get ready. Suddenly the departure time becomes the time you start getting ready.

Time-saving solution I plan to use to fix this issue? Simple - instead of telling myself I need to leave at 7pm, I am going to start telling myself I need to start getting ready to leave at 6:30pm. Easy!

The second issue causing my lateness is the biggest offender of all - I seem to think that "transition time" takes no time at all. I know it takes less than ten minutes to drive to work. My problem is that I ignore the time it takes to actually get out the door and into my car. I also forget the time it takes to get from the parking lot to my office, especially if any of my staff stop to ask me a question or say hello. Yet I still am in the daily habit of leaving the house ten minutes before I need to be at work.

Time-Savvy Solution #2 - Set aside time for routine 'get out-the-door' tasks. There transitional tasks like finding your keys, grabbing your swipe pass, phone and getting yourself out to the car with time to demist your windows on a cold winter morning that need to be included in your time allowances for arriving somewhere on time. Estimate how long your standard routine to get to the car actually takes and then actually allow time for it! 

Novel idea huh? Seems simple enough - but so many of us are guilty of doing it to ourselves repeatedly. So let's do ourselves a favour and factor the essentials into our time planning!

Got plans to see me in the next few weeks? I'll be there... on time!!!