Now What: Clocking In

By Kathy Buckworth

Dear Kathy:  I’m late for everything. My friends, family, and colleagues say it drives them crazy. Personally I don’t see what the big deal is, but why can’t I ever be on time?

As someone who is chronically early for everything, there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting on a friend or a colleague, time and time again.  From trying to trick them into being prompt (telling them a meeting time a half an hour before the expected time start), to planning on what to do to entertain oneself during that wait time, it’s extremely unfair to place the burden of correcting this behaviour on others. When I was managing a team at a large corporation, I overheard one employee say to another, “Oh, you’re working for Kathy? She’s likes to be on time; don’t ever be late.”  While I appreciated this “warning”, here’s a newsflash – EVERYONE likes EVERYONE else to be on time; it’s not just me. It shouldn’t take the threat of a bad work review to get you to change your habits.

Being on time shows respect for the other person’s time. If you arrive less than 10 minutes before you’re scheduled to meet, you’re late.  You’d have to be psychic and brilliant in order to correctly have yourself arriving precisely on time for every single meeting. Arriving early, or on time, provides you with a sense of calm; not always playing catch-up.  Everyone can be on time, if they know how to estimate the amount of time it’s going to take to get things done. Try this simple exercise:

1.) Look at your day and estimate how much time you think it will take to accomplish each task, and each piece of travel, in between tasks. (If you don’t have a set schedule for the day to begin with – this could be an even bigger time management/organization problem.)

2.) Record how long it actually takes to complete your schedule, and make note of any variances (even if it is by a few minutes) to your estimate. 

3.) Review the items where you seriously underestimated the time (if you’re always running late, you’ll have at least a few – that’s why you’re doing this!) and rework your future schedule to accommodate for this extra, previously unbeknownst, time difference.

4.) Get up at least half an hour, or an hour earlier every day until you adjust to the newly estimated “time to get things done” formula in your head, to give yourself a head start.  If it means missing that favourite late night television show and going to bed early, do it! Everything is connected.

5.) Buy and use a watch.

6.) If you find yourself early for an appointment, congratulate yourself by buying a newspaper and a coffee to enjoy during this unexpected “free time”.

7.) If you are running late due to circumstances beyond your control, immediately contact the person you are meeting when it becomes apparent you will not make it on time. Their time may be limited as well, and you may have to reschedule, and can then save the time of getting to that, and all the subsequent appointments that day, too late.

8.) Always apologize when you’re late. Always.  If you don’t have a legitimate excuse, ask yourself why you are late. If you don’t care about annoying the person you’re meeting with, why are you meeting with them in the first place? Plus, even if their opinion doesn’t seem valuable to you, they likely know many people whose opinion is.  We all know who our “late” colleagues are.

Every management guru, from Tom Peters to Robin Sharma, will tell you that being on time is one of the most important tenets of a successful person.  Don’t be late for those very important dates. Now, stop reading and go!

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