I don’t run late anymore because my new favourite word is “no”. Closely followed by the phrase “yes but not now” or “yes but not until next week”.

Or if it’s my boss “I don’t have the information to hand. I’ll get back to you with that by …” followed by the sound of me fleeing the scene

It’s amazing how many of my on-time-because-they-delegated-their-problems-to-me friends can find time to do the things they delegated to me. Or abandon them as the waste of time they were.

One thing that does work is encouraging carpoolers to multitask. If they’re not driving those ‘terribly important’ phone calls or notes or reading or daydreaming can be done in the car.

I also buy absolutely no clothing for myself or my husband that requires ironing and gave my iron away. Hours saved just by doing that.

In this case, I’m also more annoyed because the boss in question doesn’t even seem to care that she’s holding up everyone else. When someone is chronically a little late but obviously apologetic about it, that’s a lot better and goes a long way towards negating the “your time doesn’t matter to me” message.

I have another friend who is so chronically late that people regularly end up waiting 1-2 hours for her to show up. If we have evening plans and she manages to show up before midnight, everyone’s amazed. That’s an extreme case.

As for my commuter friend – he was chronically 15-30 minutes late in the morning. That’s fairly significant when you’re trying to get to work on time. I never harped on him, but I was annoyed. He would have benefited from evaluating his normal day. If he timed himself for a few days he’d realize that it took about 30 minutes to get to our meeting point, not the 10 minutes he thought it took. And once again, he wasn’t really apologetic for making me wait every day.

I know that you can’t just snap your fingers together and make the problem go away. The first step is to acknowledge it. My examples above are people who seem completely oblivious to their affect on the people around them.

The second step is to evalute your own actions and try to figure out what you can do differently. Throwing up your hands and saying “it’s just my nature” isn’t really an answer, any more than saying “I’ll just decide not to be late anymore”.

My point was that some people have a harder time than others figuring out how to manage this life skill. Just like some people are more natural than others with directions. Does that mean if you struggle with directions you should just walk around aimlessly until you end up somewhere? No. It’s not an excuse but is it helpful to get “physically angry” about it or suggest that the tardy person is just lazy/stupid/intentionally rude? I bet it’s likely there is something that you struggle with that your friends have a strength in.

I appreciate the specific routine suggestions that show how you identify what is holding you back and work around it. I keep reading the “no-snooze-button” suggestion and I think I need to try that!

Being chronically late when you know people are waiting for you *is* rude. It says to others that you don’t value them or their time. You may not mean it, but that’s exactly the message you are sending. Your “judgemental” friends are just tired of being treated like they don’t matter at all.

I used to commute with a person who would always arrive at our meeting point late. I finally figured out he completely underestimated how long it took to get from his house to our meeting point. It was annoying to me but I learned to just deal quietly because no one at work would reprimand us when we arrived late.

I’m not the perkiest person in the morning, but I figured out how to make myself get out the door in a timely manner. I don’t hit snooze anymore. I streamlined my routine – I don’t try to get anything done except what is needed to get me out the door. I used to eat breakfast in front of the TV, watching the morning news. I would inevitably wait for the weather report or other interesting upcoming story and waste time. Now I eat breakfast in the kitchen, with no distractions. I switched to picking out my clothing the night before. I may have days when I completely swith outfits in the morning, but most days I grab what I laid out the night before. I have my bag ready to go, my lunch is either prepared the night before or made up of prepackaged food that I can just grab. I also have things that I can skip if I am particularly slow one morning. I may not have time for makeup, but I’ll always have a few seconds for sunscreen.

If you are a dawdler, a routine really can help. Pare it down to the bare necessities, figure out how much time everything takes, and make sure you are out of bed with enough time to get through it. Dawdlers might need to get up earlier so they can move at their slower pace. They may also need to eliminate the extras that slow them down – like me with the morning news.

I want to thank Glen, who said “But I have friends who are always late, and as I value them for other reasons, I just adjust my expectations (like go to a museum with them rather than to go a movie).”

I am one of those folks who can’t make time work the way many others can, and I continue to strive to make it on time. It has often stressed me out to the point of being willing to give up the friendship rather than face another round of criticism. I have A LOT of talents and contributions to enhance situations and relationships, but being on time is just not at the top of the list.

So, truthfully, all of our rationale about being late really doesn’t cut it anymore… we can each decide to change our behaviour and habits. And then follow through!

Yes, I know. Excuses, excuses. Yes, I realize I’m a bad person. But just think about it, k? If you have it, finding out and getting treated, whether with medication or with counseling, or even just by learning about yourself and knowing that it’s not your fault, can change your outlook on life.

Of course, I used that extra hour and change to sleep late and play around on the computer in the morning. Had to get a timer to solve that problem….

To clarify one point, I am in fact a pretty punctual person. In fact, I am usually the one waiting for others to show up at a meeting or event and, though I work someplace where getting in to the office at a certain hour is a lower priority, I am still usually the first one in most mornings.

The issue is more that, the older I get, the earlier and earlier I have to wake up to keep this schedule. Time just seems to get away from me in my morning routine, stretching it out. I will certainly be taking many of your suggestions under advisement and will report back on any great successes I have.

Most computer programming jobs I’ve seen don’t care what time you get to work – or what hours your work. So, if you roll in at 10:00, you just stay until six that day. Flex time is pretty standard. As long as you’re getting your 40 hours in, and you’re there for meetings, people don’t care.
Also, meetings before 9:00 a.m. are rare, as for some reason, it seems a lot of people in the industry are night owls.

I can’t speak for other industries, but four out of four companies I’ve worked with in computers are schedule-free.

(btw, I was raised on the mantra ‘to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, to be late is to be left behind’, and am nuts about punctuality. It drives my husband batty. But my job doesn’t have a ’start time’ so I am slow in the mornings)