Tardiness: Stop Being Late!

How to Stop Being Late For Everything

Most of us lead complicated, demanding lives with daily schedules that are overstuffed with activities. Some people conduct themselves by the same silent yet powerful question, a question that will dictate their every decision throughout the day: “What else can I cram in?”

Recently, in a public restroom, I saw a well dressed woman, on her cell phone, walking towards a bathroom stall, and she was unbuckling her belt. Most women wait until they have closed the stall door and hung up their purses before removing clothing. Apparently, she was trying to cram in using the rest room while talking on the phone, and in order to shave a mere few seconds off of the process, she opted to start taking off her pants while still walking into the stall. Clearly, she meets the criteria for squeezing a lot of activity into each day. Crazy schedules can cause some people to be late. People that are often late tend to blame their schedules, declaring that they are just trying to fit everything in or that a previous engagement ran over time, or that they were stuck in traffic. But, in my opinion, these people aren’t being honest with themselves or others. Chronic lateness gets blamed on schedules, which is silly when you think about it, since schedules are inanimate objects; purely a means of keeping records. Schedules don't "do" anything to us - it is how we handle our schedules that matters.

After working at Fortune 500 companies, I can say that almost all of the high level executives I met were flawlessly on time. This makes it easy to think that people who are chronically late are choosing, on some level, to be late. For them, tardiness offers an unseen perk in which the benefit outweighs the cost of being late. You would think that the downside of being late – missing the start of a movie, having to greet irritated friends who have been waiting - would be negative enough to motivate the tardy person to improve their punctuality.

I have one friend that is almost always 15 to 30 minutes late and waiting on her is quite exasperating. Last week, I found myself waiting for her at a restaurant and I was wondering what on Earth could be keeping her, as she lived just 10 minutes away. I had a sudden realization that whatever it was that she was doing (trying to find shoes? Putting on lipstick? Talking on the phone?), was the action that needed to be changed. To put it simply and plainly, she was late because she was doing something else. And, she was doing something else because the value she was getting from whatever she was doing was greater than the unpleasantness of being late.

I had previously thought that what needed to change was her being late. But, I suddenly saw that my friend just needed to make being on time a priority and give herself more time to get where she needs to go.

Making being on time a priority leads to a shift in the types of questions you ask yourself. Instead of asking yourself, “Can I squeeze in dropping off this prescription on the way to the restaurant?” your question shifts to, “What time do I have to leave in order to drop off my prescription and be at the restaurant at 7:00?” Deciding to be on time shifts how you look at your day and your time. You no longer feel frantic, stressed, or distracted. Awakened within you is a sense of calm, as you realize that you have the power to schedule your day without unnecessary stress.

Since my friend was rarely on time, I decided to encourage the development of the behavior I wanted – timeliness – by reinforcing her with a positive reward when she was on time. I recognized that the absence of lateness was a big deal for her and so I gave her extra warm welcomes when she was on time and told her how happy I was that we wouldn’t have to rush through the meal. To put it another way, I rewarded her for the times when she didn’t do what I didn’t want her to do. A trick that she found worked well was giving herself permission to be late to certain events that were of low importance. She said it made it easier for her to be on time for everything else.

A technique that I use on myself and absolutely love is to be five minutes early. Those minutes are my own reward and I use them to listen to voicemail, write checks, read a new book, or just close my eyes and relax. Some days, it is my only alone time and it is a great way to pamper myself :-)

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