Habits of People Who Are Always on Time
I don’t consider myself a person who’s always on time. But more often than not, I arrive for appointments, meetings and events at, or very close, to the designated hour.
I wondered whether I actually shared the habits mentioned in this article with the interesting title.
The article suggested that if we are in a constant struggle with the clock, the solutions noted will help us master our schedules.
Here’s what the article says about people who are always on time:
When it’s time to get up, they get up.
Waking up is the first item of the day where we can procrastinate. It doesn’t matter whether we hit the snooze button and fall back asleep, or accidentally turn our alarm off and wake up 30 minutes later in a panic.
However, getting out of bed is an easy thing to delay. Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert and owner of The Protocol School of Texas, suggests an easy fix:
Put your alarm out of reach. Physically moving out of bed to turn your alarm off is a surefire way to get out of bed—and not crawl back in.
They plan breakfast at dinner.
Everyone is rushed in the morning, Gottsman says—it’s the busiest time of day. Hyper-organized, punctual people tend to have their mornings laid out before they go to bed the night before.
Their shoes and keys are by the door, their lunches are packed, and the coffee pot is set to start brewing. Some even lay out their outfits the night before—“first day of school”-style.
Having a map for our morning routine eliminates the five minutes we spend searching for our keys, and sends us out the door right on time.
They end tasks on time.
Often, people who are late simply get caught up in moving from one activity to the next, says Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management from the Inside Out. People who are time-conscious, on the other hand, map out their tasks in advance, and understand how long they should spend on each project before moving on.
The article suggests that if we answer the question: “How long will this take?” ahead of time, we’ll find it easier to wrap things up.
“If you can see what success looks like for each item, it helps you stop working,” Morgenstern says.
They recognize patterns, and correct them.
If we’re always running back inside to grab our phone charger, keep an extra at work or in the car. If we’re constantly on the hunt for our sunglasses, we can train ourselves to leave them by the door every day.
“Timely people know what they need to do to stay punctual,” says Gottsman. “Know your idiosyncrasies.”
They embrace downtime.
Part of the psychology of lateness is typically a fear of waiting or being left with nothing to do, says Morgenstern. People who are perpetually behind are often subconsciously trying to make sure that they are always moving—the idea of sitting in a doctor’s lobby makes them anxious.
Morgenstern suggests using this time to catch up on simple tasks, like networking emails or that book we’ve been dying to read. By having items permanently on our “to-do” list, we’ll always feel like we’re accomplishing something.
They’re immune to “Just One More Thing” syndrome.
The article notes that we’ll rarely hear a time-conscious person say they need to squeeze in “one more thing” before they leave. We’re reminded that this impulse can lead us off track, and suddenly it’s not just one more email—it’s an entire 15 minutes worth of emails.
“Train yourself to recognize that impulse when it happens,” Morgenstern says. “Resist the impulse to do one more thing and just leave.”
They schedule built-in overflow time.
We’re told that if we glanced at the calendar of that woman in the office—the one who’s always on time and whose hair is somehow immune to humidity—we’d probably see large gaps in her day, and space between meetings.
This overflow time is essential for handling anything unexpected that might arise and throw off our schedule.
Morgenstern suggests setting aside a chunk in the morning and one in the afternoon to catch up on to-do lists and handle spontaneous crises.
They’ve mastered the skill of calculation.
Timely people are serious planners. They map out their days, often down to the minute—including elevator time, walking time, and even the traffic and weather, meaning they are rarely delayed.
If we’ve yet to become this precise, Morgenstern has a fix: Time ourselves completing routine tasks three days in a row.
We’re encouraged to find out how long it takes us to get from bed to out the door, and then from the door of our office building to our desk, with a stop at the coffee machine on the way. Soon, the article says, we’ll become a time master, too.
They know when they do their best work.
“People who schedule well are very aware of their energy cycles,” Morgenstern says. “They know what is the ideal time for different kinds of activities.”
If we do our best thinking in the morning, we should save that time for our hardest work. By scheduling our day to maximize performance, we eliminate burning out or getting sucked into the Internet while our brain recovers from a slew of meetings.
I have to confess that I do have many of these habits - which some might call compulsive and/or obsessive traits.
If there’s a specific conclusion to be drawn, it may only be that time is a very precious commodity that we really don’t want to waste.
Courtesy Samantha Zabell, Real Simple
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