15 life hacks for those who are constantly late

Each of us has been late. Circumstances that can prevent you from arriving somewhere on time can catch anyone at the most inopportune moment. A traffic jam or a broken down car, a sick child or a kitchen faucet in need of urgent repair - similar situations It happens to everyone from time to time. A responsible person, even having a good reason for being late, experiences strong internal discomfort when letting someone else down. For others, constant lateness to work, school and important meetings is the norm.

Typically, such people do not think much about how others perceive their indiscipline. They try not to think about how many opportunities they are constantly losing because of this lifestyle. And these are missed job offers, lost friends, failed relationships. If you are aware of the problem and are looking for a way to stop being late, this article may be an important step towards finally taking control of your own life.

Set your clocks forward a few minutes

For chronically late people, this is useless advice. You will know that the clock is behind, so this will not affect the final result. Especially if you usually stay 40 minutes late instead of 5.

But for responsible people who don’t like to be late even 5 minutes, this life hack can work.

Dmitry Kuzmin

I moved the clock forward and started arriving on time.

I set the clock on my phone forward 10–15 minutes. That is, the real time is 13:00, on my watch it is 13:15. Usually these 15 minutes are not enough because of a small traffic jam or “oh, hello, friend, how are you.” I've been using it for ten years now.

True, I ended up arriving 15 minutes earlier, but it’s convenient to spend this time on accumulated letters and chats in instant messengers.

Create a personal schedule.

There are many small and short-term tasks that in themselves take very little time, but in the aggregate they can delay the implementation of more important tasks for an indefinitely long period and therefore become the cause of regular delays.

Even if you only spend a minute of your time on such little things, take them into account in your organizer. Let the working day be scheduled down to the minute, and highlight the most important tasks in bold. By regularly checking this schedule, you will always know when and what needs to be sacrificed in order to be punctual in your work.

Find motivation

It is better, of course, to think about positive reinforcement. But look for options that are not too expensive. It’s nice to buy something expensive every time you arrive on time, but it’s very expensive, since the habit of not being late should be maintained for life.

However, negative motivation also works, especially if it is imposed from the outside.

Alice

Stopped being late to save money.

We were fined a huge amount at one of our jobs and were given a feeling of shame that we were letting the team down. And it definitely made me more punctual.

Appreciate other people's time

To do this, you can put yourself in the place of someone waiting. Since due to being late, the meeting may drag on, and this will push back everyone’s other things.

Now you know how to manage your time. It is important to learn to appreciate it, since being late for one meeting can trigger a whole chain of subsequent ones. Having overslept for work, you will have to stay late. Then you may not have time to redo all the housework scheduled for the evening.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone waiting

Usually the person who is late is more focused on himself: what they will think of him, what inconvenience the delay will bring him, and so on. Trying to look at a situation from the other side is therapeutic. Why should a person actually wait for you? Systematic delays can ruin everything, and this will be a fair outcome.

Albina Zakirova

I realized that no one has to wait.

I have become an irritable bore who makes high demands on others and expresses my rejection and disagreement with the person who was late and kept me waiting for no objective reason. But it also works in the opposite direction: no one has to wait for me and waste their time aimlessly. As soon as I realized this, everything changed.

Set a timer or alarm.

For the entire period of your preparations, set the alarm clock in several stages. For example, what time should you eat, what time should you take a shower, and when should you urgently leave? We advise you not to reschedule your alarm, as there is a risk of leaving at the wrong time again and being late. And at the last signal, without looking back at whether you managed to gather yourself to the required extent or not, be sure to go out. If it is a cold time of year, we advise you to calculate the time so that you have time to put on outerwear.

Don't pass the buck

You have a million excuses for being late. Blame traffic jams, a torn shoe, an untimely call, a switched off alarm clock - anyone or anything, but not you. Quit making excuses. The main reason for being late stares back at you in the mirror every day. You are late - find the courage to admit guilt and take responsibility for what happened.

Maria Solovyova

She matured and became punctual.

I used to be late all the time. Now I realize that I liked it. There is some kind of maturity in this. When you are running somewhere, in a hurry, shouting on the phone: “Damn, sorry, I’m late, I can’t,” you look so businesslike from the outside.

I don’t remember exactly how everything changed. But at a certain moment a feeling of responsibility came. It’s as if I have matured, I understand about myself: I am responsible for my time, I respect the time of another person, I can pull myself together, calculate the schedule and arrive on time. There is nothing complicated about this: you just understand that a person is waiting for you, he is also a businessman and an adult, you have rules of the game, you respect each other. Now I am sure that in 80% of cases being late is selfishness.

Classification

To understand why certain people are late and how to treat it (with patience and understanding or harsh punishment), they began to be divided into 7 types.

Types of people who are always late:

Deadliner. He strives to do everything at the last moment and does not calculate his strength well. Can't concentrate.
Manufacturer. He is interested in many tasks and does not keep track of time.
Absent-minded. This is a diagnosis - he forgets everything he was going to do, to whom and what he promised. Not an easy case.
Innovator. He does not admit his guilt and finds hundreds of excuses for his delays.
Minion. A person who has problems with self-control and responsibility.
Freeloader. Ignores the opinions of others and uses being late as an excuse for his shortcomings.
Rebel. In this way he tries to show his superiority over the system, his fearlessness.

Change your environment

If everyone around you is late, then you don’t seem to need to be on time: you’ll still have to wait. This also works in the opposite direction: if punctuality is not an empty phrase for those around you, you will have to adapt.

Marina Kovshova

I moved to Finland and stopped being late.

In Finland, all the rules are strict. I moved to study, and the academic environment was obliging. If you are more than 15 minutes late for the exam, you will simply not be allowed in and you will have to take it next time. If you miss the bus or train, he will leave and the driver will not wait, even seeing you running and waving at him. The deadlines are also strict.

Previously, in Russia I was always late. Not much, but constantly, and I didn’t worry. When I started living in Finland, I immediately became very punctual. But I realized that it is very inconvenient when you come to Russia. All your friends are late for meetings, doctors are late for appointments, you never know how long the bus ride will take due to traffic jams.

How to Stop Being Late: 7 Steps

When I was working as a therapist, one of my clients—let's call her Maria—was constantly late. Each session, 10 or 20 minutes after the start, Maria would burst into the room in a whirlwind of breathless apologies. She always looked somewhat nervous and in a state of panic.

How many times have you had to skip breakfast, put on an unironed shirt, or leave your apartment with wet hair so as not to be late?

Being late can be completely devastating:

Missed opportunities . I'm not just talking about the worst-case scenario where you miss the interview for your dream job. What I'm talking about is the whole range of opportunities that you could miss out on if you don't have control over your time and don't come across as well-organized and professional.
Damage to your reputation . Research carried out by Jobs.ie found that 46% of employees feel dissatisfied with their colleagues who are constantly late. And about a third of managers fired an employee for being late.
Psychological harm . Being late causes stress, anxiety, guilt and shame. We've all experienced that terrible feeling of being stuck in traffic, tapping your feet, willing the cars to move forward, as if you could influence it. We experience hours of unnecessary stress every week.

However, almost any delay can be avoided. It is not particularly difficult to achieve control over your time. This is a matter of responsibility, self-organization and careful attention to your obligations.

Development of punctuality

Find out the root causes of your time management problems

At the very beginning of working with Maria, I was offended by her tardiness. I thought this reflected the low priority she places on therapy.

However, while working, it became clear that she was late for the opposite reason. Low self-esteem forced her to be late for any events that were important to her. She missed exams, interviews, wedding ceremonies - all this always ended in drama and gave her a reason to be unhappy.

It is possible that there are deeper reasons for your constant lateness. There is nothing strange about this idea. If you find that lateness has become a recurring feature in your life, it is very unlikely that it is an accident.

Types of people who are constantly late

In her book The Easy Way to Stop Being Late, punctuality guru Diane De Lonzor identifies four types of chronically late people:

Perfectionist. Perfectionists need everything to be in order before they leave the house. They continue to correct the footnotes in their work even though the deadline is already passing. They are too focused on little things. Perfectionists need to realize that they can't see the forest for the trees. Do you actually need to rearrange your shoe rack before heading out the door? Is it really important for you to wash your glasses instead of catching the bus?
Dreamer . Dreamers seriously underestimate the time it will take to complete a task or arrive at a destination. Dreamers need to wake up to the fact that they are not thinking things through properly. If you're constantly rushing to get somewhere, it means your approach isn't working.
Dramatizer. Dramatists are hooked on the adrenaline that comes with completing a task at the last minute. Sometimes they even believe that they work better under pressure. But this is a very risky and destructive strategy. De Lonzor suggests dramatists look for other ways to get that adrenaline rush they need. Instead of racing through traffic every weekday morning, maybe it would be better to take up motorcycle racing on the weekends.
Rebel . Rebels view punctuality as a form of systemic oppression. Being late is an act of rebellion. Rebels should realize that their own interests suffer far more than those of the establishment when they refuse to show up on time. There are other, more effective outlets for revolutionary zeal than being late.

Understanding the reason for your lateness is the first step to stopping being late. But real change can take a lot of time and patience. Don't expect overnight miracles. However, there are practical issues that require correction that correspond to each of these patterns.

Urgency: Learn to value your time

If you don't fit exactly one of De Lonzor's types, don't worry. There is another factor that determines the tendency to be late, which has been the subject of considerable scientific research.

In the mid-20th century, Friedman and Rosenman divided people into two personality types - type A and type B.

Type A people are considered ambitious, time-conscious, competitive, and organized.
Type B people are more relaxed and live at a slower pace.

At first glance, this study should be taken with a great deal of skepticism. This applies to any psychological model, but especially to the Type A and Type B personality model. That being said, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Something can still be learned from this model in terms of punctuality.

Research by Dishon-Berkowitz and Koslowski shows that people with Type A personality characteristics are less likely to be late. What distinguished the Type A people in this study was the “time urgency.” These people viewed time as a valuable resource and were more likely to manage it effectively.

In a 2001 study, Waller, Conde, and Carpenter also found that people grouped into these two personality types perceive time differently. For example, they were asked to judge when a minute had passed. Type A people took an average of 58 seconds to count a minute, while Type B people took 77 seconds. As you can imagine, this small difference will have a very significant impact over the course of the entire day.

Type A people have more than just advantages. Despite being successful in their careers and being punctual, people with Type A personalities are angrier, more neurotic, less patient and, presumably, more prone to heart disease. Having an urgency mindset also has downsides—it can mean Type A people are in a hurry and become impatient.

However, from this study we can conclude that people who value time more strongly tend to be more punctual.

Gaining control over time

Make practical changes

Understanding the reasons for lateness is important. But keep in mind that this is only half the battle. According to Rogelberg and his co-authors, “motivation to be on time for a meeting does not always translate into actual punctuality.”

Now we'll take a look at how the tendency to be late manifests itself in some people I've worked with—and myself—and see what techniques can help overcome these problems.

These methods correspond to De Lonzor's four personality types.

Perfectionist: Create wiggle room by starting your morning the night before.

When it was discovered that the reason Maria was late was a form of self-sabotage (note: Maria discovered this, not me), it was nothing more than an interesting fact. One phrase “oh, this explains everything” is not enough - something had to be done anyway.

Maria was a perfectionist. She was the kind of person who needed to get her house in perfect order before going out.

Realizing that she didn't have enough time in the morning, Maria decided to move part of her morning to the previous evening.

Here are some of Mary's morning routines that she started doing before going to bed:

Selecting and ironing clothes for the next day
Preparing breakfast, such as oatmeal
Take a bath rather than a shower in the morning
Preparing lunch and packing your work bag
Small habits like putting your shoes by the door and taking out the trash

All of this helped cut her morning routine down to about 20 minutes. Once Maria recognized her underlying problems, she began to follow these simple steps and soon began showing up on time for our meetings.

Dreamer: Always plan to arrive early - and always assume there will be an unexpected delay

My own problems with being late (now resolved) were most closely associated with the “dreamer” personality type. I had very little idea of how long things would take. No matter how early I woke up, I could never get on the train without running after it.

A survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com found some of the most common reasons for being late:

Traffic jams (39%)
Lack of sleep (19%)
Problems with public transport (8%)
Bad weather (7%)
Child care (6%)

Sound familiar? All of this, except for the second point (which we will return to later), are the problems of the Dreamers. I also encountered them. We Dreamers underestimate the amount of time something will take or overestimate how much we can squeeze into a given period of time.

Here's how I dealt with these problems:

I always allow an extra 20 minutes for the trip.
When using public transport, which happens almost every day, I take an earlier bus or train than required to get to my destination on time. Public transport is terrible in some areas, including mine. But complaining about it doesn't solve the problem. I have learned to accept this flaw and embrace it.
When walking or biking, I try different routes to see which one is faster. Those of you commuting to work can do the same. Set a reminder to check your traffic app in the morning if you need to go somewhere.
Set your alarm so you have time to get ready. Most calendar apps allow you to set multiple reminders for a single appointment. Use them to set extra alarms for when you need to get out, shower, make coffee, and set up your headphones and microphone for a video call.

Now I'm realistic about how much time it takes to do things, and I still add extra time just in case. For example, when walking, I often walk slower than Google Maps thinks. I like to walk, but I hate rushing. Therefore, I always add about 10% to the estimated time.

Dramatist: Set your alarm early and get out of bed as soon as you hear it.

I have been working with adolescents and young adults for the past seven years. They often wake up too late.

I currently work in a university environment and am sometimes amazed that students complain about “early” lectures starting at 9 or 10 am. But then I remember how hard it was for me to crawl out of bed on my own in the mornings during my student years.

It's not just laziness. Kelly and colleagues showed that young people's biological clocks are simply calibrated differently than those of older people.

Here's what I suggest:

Try an alarm clock app. In Alarmy, for example, the alarm stops ringing only when certain conditions are met. I've used this app myself - when I need to get up and start working early, I set the alarm so that it only stops ringing when I take a photo of my open laptop.
Don't hit the snooze button. I know students who have set a series of 10 or more alarms to go off at five-minute intervals. If you're doing the same, don't. When you fall asleep after your alarm goes off, your body relaxes and goes back into the sleep cycle. During the next signal, the cycle is interrupted, and because of this you feel weak for the rest of the morning.
Set your alarm for an earlier time. It may seem obvious, but often the most obvious advice is the most effective. Twenty minutes of sleep can be neglected, but when you have an extra 20 minutes in the morning, it can be a real salvation.
Place a bottle of water next to your bed. This is another tip I use when I want to get up especially early. When I hear the alarm, I reach out and drink some water. It's not a double espresso, but I find it makes it easier for me to crawl out of bed.
Go to bed earlier. You know, it makes sense. Many people I know have had their lives improved by going to bed earlier and following a routine. This may require work and significant lifestyle changes. But quality sleep is a great thing no matter how you look at it. You can even set an alarm to remind you that it's time to get ready for bed.

It is clear to me that students who are frequently late and have attendance problems are less likely to succeed. But I understand that it's not always because they overslept, and even if it is, I don't equate being late with laziness.

But there is a clear connection between student success and tardiness. A study conducted by Ekstrom found that students who are frequently late are more likely to receive lower grades. Chronic tardiness in people of all ages is most often associated with oversleeping.

If you've never had a truly leisurely workday morning, give it a try. Having some free time before commuting to work is a great feeling.

Rebel: Make positive changes at work so you'll want to be on time.

In a 2013 study on lateness to meetings, Rogelberg found a positive correlation between lateness and motivation. People who were late more often were less satisfied with their jobs and were more likely to consider quitting. Hanisch and Hulin also found that tardiness was strongly associated with other “avoidance behaviors” at work, such as absenteeism, retirement, and avoidance of obligations.

I once worked with a guy who hated his job. Let's call him Milos. We worked in a care home for adults with learning disabilities. Milos moved from another country, leaving his family, to earn some money. He regretted his decision.

Milos's biggest problem was that he accepted his circumstances. He got shifts that no one wanted. He was called to replace sick colleagues. And since he was one of the few employees who drove a car, he had to work every weekend to take patients for walks.

He was very offended. If he had no urgent business, he sat and read the newspaper. He left either earlier or at the same second when his shift ended. And he was always - really always - late.

I don’t know what happened to him, but one day Milos talked to his manager about giving him fewer evening and weekend shifts. He said that he would no longer be able to replace sick colleagues, and asked to transfer the driver from another care home.

And as soon as the situation changed, Milos began to take his responsibilities better. He stopped constantly looking at his watch while waiting for his shift to end. And guess what - he started showing up on time.

If you're constantly late for a job you hate, perhaps you can learn from Milos' situation.

Ask your colleagues for help.
Discuss the situation with your manager.
Consider a career change!

Manage your feelings about being late

Recognize that being late is not your fault, but your responsibility.

It is unlikely that your lateness is entirely your fault. Sometimes trains are cancelled. Sometimes alarms don't really go off.

Parents won't be surprised to learn about the results of a study conducted by Dishon-Berkowitz and Koslowski, which found that employees who have children aged two years or younger are more likely to be late.

Cultural factors also play a role. It has been shown that people of different cultures perceive time differently. For example, Levine, West, and Reis found that clocks were perceived as less accurate in Brazil than in the United States. This does not mean that Brazilians are less organized than North Americans. It's just that some cultures place more importance on punctuality than others. This is neither good nor bad.

You have a choice whether to be on time. Poor punctuality is not necessarily your fault—the fact that it was influenced by the culture you were born into is a clear indication of that. But it's your responsibility. If you know that this moment is causing problems in your life, you need to take control of it.

Eckhart Tolle argues that excessive attention to past mistakes integrates these events into our self-perception. If you blame yourself for being late, you accept it as “part of you.” The ego is very reluctant to give up any element of self-identity - even negative attributes. Learn from certain events, but don't punish yourself, or you'll find it even harder to make changes.

And when you see that you are late and there is nothing you can do, don’t worry or worry. Consider what you can do - tell the other party you'll be late, reschedule the meeting, change priorities (for example, take a more expensive form of transport) and, of course, do something differently next time.

Summary

You may have already tried some of the methods I've outlined here. But if you've tried each of the practical steps above and are still regularly late, you may have some more fundamental problems.

What might be different this time? Well, you're now armed with a deeper understanding of the psychological and practical reasons why you're late. And by reading this article to the end, you have already made a commitment to change.

Follow these seven steps:

Find out the deeper reasons for your punctuality problem.
Increase the value of time.
Plan your day better - always try to allocate more time to complete a particular task.
Get up earlier - try different alarm clocks and drink water as soon as you wake up. Get more sleep if you need it.
Move some of your morning tasks to the evening - prepare everything you can the day before.
Find something that makes you want to be on time - if you realize that deep down you don't want to be on time, that's a problem that needs to be addressed separately.
Create a positive habit of not blaming yourself - become aware of the negative emotions associated with being late.

Source

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What type of late person are you?

The first step to timeliness is self-awareness. Sit down and analyze your past and your character traits. Are you late always and everywhere or only in certain cases? How do you feel when you are late? What makes you late?

Are you always late by a certain time, or does it constantly change? A fixed time of lateness indicates some kind of psychological obstacle. Perhaps you are afraid of downtime or want to fit as many things into your day as possible (even if this is physically impossible). If you are late somewhere by 10 minutes or half an hour, the problem is mechanical. In this case, you need to work on your time management skills.

Conventionally, there are 7 types of late people. Most people fall into three main categories:

A deadliner likes to rush at the very last moment. He excels in urgent matters and optimizes in tense situations. It is sometimes difficult to motivate a deadliner to work if there is no real crisis. By jumping from one thing to another, the deadliner gets rid of boredom.

The manufacturer needs to do as much as possible in as little time as possible. Such a subject feels great joy for himself, marking completed tasks on a huge list of tasks. Manufacturers tend to engage in “magical thinking”—severely underestimating the amount of time they need to complete assigned tasks. They hate wasting time, so they draw up a detailed plan for the day so that every minute is planned out.

The absent-minded professor is constantly distracted. Scientists suggest that distraction has a genetic basis and can range from full-blown attention deficit disorder to innocent quirks. An absent-minded professor often loses the passage of time, forgets his keys and meeting arrangements at home.

People usually exhibit signs of other types of latecomers. For example, the Rationalizer will never fully admit his guilt in being late (many of us are at least half rationalizers). A minion is someone who usually lacks self-control. A freeloader who justifies his anxiety and low self-esteem by being late. And finally, Rebel is late because he wants to demonstrate his strength to everyone (Rebels are usually men).

A few more inhumane methods

In general, inhumane methods of dealing with employee tardiness are more common in domestic practice than the opposite. Directors prefer to create discomfort for their subordinates, which would force them not to violate the internal rules of the company. Of course, the above cases should work, but is there really no other way to deal with lateness? Probably, it is possible, but now the following forms of influence are also popular, bordering on violation of the requirements of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation:

Deprivation of several days of vacation for a certain number of delays;
Creation of a “board of shame” where malicious troublemakers are posted;
All sorts of trolling at meetings, sideways glances;
Presenting unique souvenirs like “Slobber of the Month” figurines;
Censure by the company's "weighty" employees.

In approximately the same spirit, this list can be continued almost indefinitely. The main support of all these methods is the inclusion of society and its condemnation of this act. The latecomer, ideally, should have the impression that he is “alone before the opinion of the crowd.” The human tendency to “herd,” especially in the corporate world, is well known. Many people who are usually grouped into the “office plankton” group are very susceptible to criticism from society. Wanting to be “in the general mass,” they endure criticism quite painfully and try to avoid it with all their might.

We find out the reason for the delays

It is completely incomprehensible why the managers of many companies are not at all interested in why their employees are late for work. They tend to view this only as a fact of violation of internal regulations and take certain actions to eliminate the precedent. As you know, before starting treatment for a disease, it is quite logical to conduct an examination and make the correct diagnosis. Forcing subordinates to humiliate themselves with explanations or to blush in front of the team is the same as giving citramone to all sick people and smearing brilliant green on their foreheads if they have something in pain, and it doesn’t matter what kind of illness they are talking about. We will try to explain why we act this way – the directors simply don’t want to “bother” about this. One of our clients is late for work only because it takes several hours to get there, transferring to several types of transport. The question is, why blame a person here? Yes, he is absolutely definitely wrong, but is it really necessary to deal with his tardiness by writing explanatory notes? Giving advice like: “Get up early” would be somewhat stupid. The most optimal solution here may be to shift working hours by 30-60 minutes with a proportional increase in the evening. The company will not suffer from such an innovation, and the employee will say “thank you.” In general, in professional literature for personnel officers, it is customary to divide the reasons for lateness into objective and subjective. The example we have given belongs to the first category, and it deserves the manager to make some effort to help his subordinate. Biased reasons for lateness (lack of self-organization, discipline, bad habits, etc.), unfortunately, are the source of most of the lateness. However, it makes sense to remember about the “good” and “evil” policeman - perhaps this technique will help solve our problem.

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The benefits of punctuality

A punctual person looks calm and happy.
To decide to eradicate the habit of being late, you need to understand how much better your life will be if you can become punctual:

the number of stressful situations will decrease - the boss will stop reprimanding, your loved one will not be offended, work negotiations will take place in a timely manner and in a positive mood;
They will stop saying unpleasant words behind your back, they will not judge you or demonstrate their indignation;
colleagues will begin to respect you, and this also applies to family members - they will understand that you had to make a lot of efforts in order to improve;
You will be able to climb the career ladder. This situation is typical for cases when a person has merit at work, but regular tardiness does not allow him to grow. When management sees that an employee has become responsible, they decide that he can be rewarded.

Punctuality is a positive character trait and can be instilled at any age.

Learn to get enough sleep

Oddly enough, one of the most effective methods to stop being late is to get a good night's sleep. A person who lacks sleep becomes lethargic and slow. He may manage to be late, even if he leaves the house with an impressive time reserve. To be cheerful, energetic and punctual, follow these rules:

Don't stay up late. Try to go to bed before midnight.
Don't watch action-packed movies or talk shows at night, don't listen to loud music - don't do anything that can cause strong emotions (both positive and negative). They do not help you fall asleep.
Drink valerian. With regular use, a safe cheap remedy will help normalize sleep.
Read before bed. This activity is great for lulling.

Have a good rest

Not getting good rest affects how you wake up and feel throughout the day. If you constantly do not get enough sleep, then only a crane can lift you to work on time. Even when you do get up, you will do everything slower than you could, and this will delay you. Additionally, lack of sleep and rest can lead to absent-mindedness, which can cause you to miss an important meeting or forget to complete a task on time.