Why are you always late and how can you change it? ➤AppMaxx

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showing up late is perhaps the most selfish and rude thing to do. When you are late, you steal someone else's time and something they can never get back. Steal their money so they can get it back. Steal them once and for all. If you want to significantly improve your reputation both professionally and personally, pay close attention to your timekeeping. When you respect other people's time, they will respect yours. So why are you always late and how can you change that to be always on time?

1. Poor Calendar Management

This is the most common reason for being late. If you allow other people to schedule appointments on your calendar, for example, you are giving away control of your most valuable asset—your time. No matter where you are in your company's hierarchy, make sure you at least accept calendar invitations before they're accepted. Your calendar is unique among your productivity tools in that it never lies to you. You get the same twenty-four hours and everything else, and you can choose how you spend those hours each day. You can add dates for tasks that are not related to those dates in your list, you can't do it on your calendar (well you can, but that would just be lying to yourself and what's the point?) This means you can immediately see when you double-book yourself, or when you don't leave enough time between meetings. It will tell you if you have a realistic amount of time left to get from one place to another because you can see on the screen where you should be next. The trick I use when I ask if I can attend a meeting on a certain day is always the answer “let me check my calendar and I'll get back to you”. I could check my calendar from my phone and tell them right away, but I made a lot of mistakes by rushing to confirm an appointment without taking a few extra minutes to check and make sure I have enough travel time between my appointments. It also allows me time to consider what I am being asked to do what I want to do. If this is not the case, then I can easily decline the invitation.

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2. Learn to say no

The time-tested and still the most effective way to get control of your time and not be late for your obligations. We all tend to overload ourselves. We want to be beautiful, we don't want to hurt other people's feelings by rejecting them. We don't want to miss an opportunity—fear that everyone else knows what's going on and we don't. He builds everyone to make us want to say “Yes” all the time. This is what makes us stand up for ourselves, and then we find ourselves late for all our events and commitments, which is the opposite of what we want to achieve - the respect of colleagues. When you start to be much more objective about what you say “yes” to and analyze whether you will have time to dedicate yourself to what it asks you to make a commitment to be ready to say “no” to many of these opportunities that destroy your ability to save time efficiently, then you will find that rather than being late all the time, you start to be the first to arrive. That's when your peers start to respect you more. You have shown that you respect their time and in return they will respect yours. You should know that saying there are no opportunities and obligations helps everyone. If you say yes to something and don't strive to fulfill those obligations, you are not only lowering your peers, you are also lowering yourself. It's convenient for you to say no. You will find it will help you a lot more than you think. If you need help on how to say no, check out this article written by Leo Babauta: The Gentle Art of Saying No

3. Allow extra time to get to where you are going

This has the added benefit of reducing stress. When you arrive early for a meeting, you will get time to stop and reflect or catch up. You can do the same with doctors and dental appointments too. Those few free minutes in the waiting room are a great place to do some focused work or answer a few emails. It gives you a much-needed respite in a chaotic world.

4. Be reinsured for the duration of the trip

You never know what traffic will be and as long as we have the technology to let us know about today's traffic hotspots, traffic buildup can happen very quickly. One small accident can very easily add an extra thirty minutes to travel time. The secret is to get behind it. Give yourself an extra thirty minutes of time travel and you will benefit from the other side. I often found myself taking thirty minutes in an empty room to do my job calmly.

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5. Never be afraid to apologize for meeting work.

You'll be surprised how easy it is and you're helping everyone caught up in someone else's inept encounter. Another, you could refuse to participate in any meeting that does not have a clearly defined start and end time and agenda. Of course, this can be difficult if it is your boss who is the culprit. But you have to take control here. If you are attending a meeting where you know the organizer is regularly overcharging their meeting and they are above you in the company's food chain, then explain in the beginning that you will have to leave for the specified time. This has two advantages: First, it alerts the organizer to finish on time. Secondly, all other meetings feel huge gratitude to you for increasing the chances of the meeting being ready on time. Never compromise. You tend to be somewhere at a certain time. You checked your calendar, you knew when you set the appointment and so, you have to fulfill your obligations, some of which are on time. I have even been known to inform my dentist that I will have to leave at a certain time so that I can get there before the pre-arranged time. This means that my dentist is always honest with me about how long a particular treatment lasts, which helps me better judge how long I will have before my next appointment. If you have any doubts that you will be able to get to your appointment on time, do not make an appointment. Or is it better to prioritize your obligations. It's much better to cancel an appointment on time than having everything waiting for you.

Final Thoughts

We are foolish to think that money is our most valuable asset, forgetting that money can always be gained or lost. Unlike the time where once he was gone, he is gone forever and you will never get him back. When you understand this, you will begin to understand that not only will you have to protect your time, but you will also have to respect the time of others. Arriving late for appointments—no matter who you are—not civilized. It's just good manners to show respect for the people of the time and that it always starts on time for your meetings.