Hello World,
Yes, I am fashionably late once again! I love to write and therefore I have a few excuses to tag to my lateness but let me start by asking what is your daily excuse for being late? Why are you one of those people who can never be on time to work? Despite setting 7 alarms to sound in the morning. I mean yes, once you were late because the bus wasn’t on time, completely reasonable. Then the second time you were late because it started to rain which caused an accident and that led to a huge traffic jam, definitely another good reason. The third time the Uber driver lost his way to you, trust me I can relate! All great reasons for being late and none of which are of your fault. At the same time, I want to ask if any of these occurrence were preventable if you kept some wiggle room, planned accordingly and headed to work a bit early?
Type B personality
Are you always late? Then you can possibly be a Type B personality. Type A personalities are aggressive, ambitious, competitive, outgoing, impatient, in other words, go-getters! Type B personalities are more creative, relaxed and laid-back. These two personality types view time differently. Wall Street Journal reports, Type A individuals estimated that a minute passed in 58 seconds, compared with 77 seconds for Type B individuals. Have friends who are constantly late to every event possible? You don’t even have to vent about that situation, I can identify completely! The information doesn’t give them a certificate to be late but clarifies their behavior.
Fun fact, the U.S. loses 90 million USD per year for people running late, hence time actually is money!
Attention
Ever watched an Awards night and wondered why the absolute trending celebrities are never too early to walk on the Red Carpet?! They are always walking in Fashionably Late. They arrive when most of the stars are gone inside to be seated. At first let me begin by saying these celebrities have amazing managers and PR representatives who organize the entire scenario of lateness. Arriving late builds the audiences anticipation which brings more focus and attention on the celebrity. Ah epiphany! That’s why you walk in late to the party every time! You want your crush to notice you, you want everyone to notice that new pair of shoes or that brand new sports car you recently bought. You want attention!
Some people time the attention they receive subconsciously. They don’t arrive too early because they will be judged as a loser or a loner. They don’t arrive right on time because that will cause the awkwardness of mingling with random people. They arrive 10 to 20 minutes late to be in their preferred comfort zone.
People suffering from Attention Deficit disorder and Attention Deficit hyperactivity disorder are also often late. Few reasons why people are late is due to lack of interest at work/event/meeting. You find the work not challenging enough for your standards. The event is plain boring. There isn’t a motivation for you to attend, therefore you are late. You are not getting anything out of it. You are not learning and or receiving an incentive for attending. Attendance or the time of arrival doesn’t have a consequence.
You are a bad Planner!
You are a bad planner! People with poor time management skills are obviously the victim of being late. They are also the ones who have distorted sense of time. Time goes slow for them. Their optimistic bias kicks in which make them feel they have a lot of time to complete a project or work towards a goal. They lack the ability to accurately estimate and schedule a project completion date and time.
There is also the Hyperfocus people who think they can multitask but in reality they are way too invested on one very important project. Taking on multiple tasks believing they can complete them all. This thinking make them late on other aspects of their lives.
Let’s work on Punctuality
Yes, we have to work on our discipline and planning. We have to understand to get to point B from A we may have to face many obstacles in between. To tackle those obstacles we need to give us time! It’s not an easy task as we want to always save our time to do other things and or focus on distractions. But we need to learn to prioritize. If something is on priority list then we must give it time and all of it. Let’s try waking up earlier than we usually do, and reset our biological clock since those 7 set alarms are ineffective. Let’s create trigger-word motivators; late is aweful, it makes other people some what notice you in a negative way, while being punctual always puts you in the good light. Let’s always recognize that we were punctual to a meeting and reward ourselves- grab a desert! Let’s utilize all those time management apps available to us on the app stores on your phone and computer.
Remember time is money and when you are late you are always missing out on an opportunity!
Thanks,
DLA
