Killing Yourself Softly With Tardiness!

Many of us live pretty hectic lives these days. Take mine today as an example. I woke up at 5:00 am, had my exercise coach come in at 6:00 am and still tried to get to the office on time. I then had client meetings outside the office, conference calls and I’m now seating down to finally write this article. This is how we spend 99% of our time. In addition to also having to catch up with mails and other family and social matters.

In view of the above, many of us struggle to be punctual. The question is, how come some people manage to arrive at meetings on time and some people never do? The short answer is, they make punctuality a priority. Have you ever wondered how come these punctuality deficient people never seem to miss the plane? Despite the fact that they are chronically late for meetings.

I had a boss, who was very fund of overbooking appointments, which invariably meant he was late for most meetings. Going for meetings with him was always a frazzled experience and clients were not always please nor felt respected that their time was held up because we did not arrive on time for meetings.

Many of us have various excuses for why we are late. I had two people interviewing with me this past week and they were both grossly late. In both instances, I refused to proceed with the interviews because to me punctuality is the starting point of professionalism. If you cannot be punctual especially to an interview, why would I want to give you work, my take on this is that when you start work, get into the system and relax, your lack of punctuality will be off the charts. There was no way I was going to start my journey with them on that premise.

We all need to realize that tardiness can be construed to be rude and unprofessional. Irrespective of how much work we think we have or how terrible the traffic was, none of these excuses are good enough if we are regularly late.

Ask yourself the question, are you always late? If you are, you MUST change. Your professional reputation is at stake. Here’s why that’s so, and how you can change. According to John Boitnoit, in his write up on, “Cultivate Punctuality To Help You Stand Out Among Your Co-Workers”, he explains the following:

Punctuality matters
If you are consistently late for business meetings, stop. Being late shows coworkers, supervisors and potential business clients that you are undependable, not well organized or perhaps don’t even care.
Tardiness does not help your professional reputation, yet it’s an easy issue to fix when you put your mind to it. Also, it can be so common that if you are consistently punctual in your business affairs, you will stand out from your chronically late coworkers.

Punctuality is professional
Pretend for a moment that you are attending a pre-op appointment for brain surgery. After 45 minutes of waiting, your surgeon bursts into the room sweaty and frazzled. How would that make you feel? Still want him or her to operate on your brain? I didn’t think so.
The same is true when you come into a business meeting frazzled and obviously stressed. Whether true or not, this gives the impression that you are disorderly or irresponsible. No professional wants to be viewed this way.

Tardiness is ill-mannered

Many people believe being on time reflects good manners because it shows respect and consideration for the other person’s time. After all, there are many productive things they could be doing instead of waiting for you to arrive.
Take this week to practice being punctual. Just take action with the right intentions, and you’ll be more likely to have success.

How You Do These:
Remind yourself and stick to time limits
Place reminders around your home and office to remind you of your punctuality goal. Set a timer for different tasks and stick to any time limit you create.

Spread out appointments
Do not set your appointments so close together that you only have travel time between them. If one small thing goes awry, such as bad traffic or a prior meeting running late, you will have no breathing room, and won’t be not be on time. Keep a buffer between appointments to account for unforeseen events, as well as to decrease your overall stress.

Use technology
Professionals are constantly on their computers or other gadgets, so use this to your advantage. Set timers on calendars or phones as reminders to leave. Do not set the alarm for the time the meeting begins; set it for 15 to 30 minutes early. Traffic apps can help if you must travel for a meeting. Be sure to give yourself adequate time to allow for traffic.

Be empathetic.
In addition to active methods of helping yourself be on time, be empathetic to others. Understand that your actions have consequences for them, too. It takes time away from other people and disrupts their schedules to sit and wait on you. This alone should give you motivation to change.

Cut items from your to-do list.

Not everything you’d like to get done can or should get done today. Stop trying to do so much. Some items will just have to wait until later. Be honest when deciding what needs to be accomplished, and what is just taking up time that could be better spent getting to the next, important appointment.

So, begin with just one week of trying these steps and truly concentrating on being punctual. Hopefully, this will turn into a habit and become your normal way for accomplishing tasks and meeting people. Colleagues and friends will appreciate the change, and you will also come across as more professional and caring. Beat the tardiness epidemic, and gain one leg up on the competition.

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