Being late!

If someone asks me: “are you the kind of person who arrives ahead on time or arrives late?”, I would say: “Always on time!”.

For the last 5 years I am having the feedback from my team, that I should improve my time management and arriving to the meetings on time! The first 2 or 3 years I ignored, as I didn’t see myself doing it, and they were telling me that it was only a detail… Then the feedback was about the same with different teams…so this has to mean something!

I don’t mean to be late! Actually I hate people who don’t respect other’s time, and have this constant in their life’s. I have an example, my husband…my best friend…so I am the one who is always stressed about being on time at home.

But this end of the year, with a new boss and a new team, and here comes again: “To improve, please try to manage better your time and arrive on time to the meetings!” Again!!!, please I have the intentions to not be late, I text when I am 2 min late… i feel it is out of my control!!

This week I read one of the Seth Godin’s post which fully resonate with me, “Good intentions (how to be on time)”:

“You probably know people who are late. They don’t want to be late. In fact, their good intentions are probably the reason that they are late. They might try one technique or another, and even apologize for being late, and yet it happens again.

And the reason?

The reason is that in every interaction, they want to connect a bit more, respect the other person’s ideas and contribute in that moment. They do that by spending their most precious resource on their behalf. What’s happening is that they are looking for a magical way to get more minutes in the day.”

I find rude when people cut the conversation because they don’t want to arrive late to the next meeting. So when it is my turn, I have a real difficulty in doing it. It is also true my calendar is very busy, sometimes I have like 10 meetings in day! I used to think it was a good busy, but now I feel ashamed and I am trying to take time everyday to manage my calendar. And I am finding a great exercise, asking myself, is this really a necessary meeting?, should I be there?, questioning about the productivity of the meetings…i have to admit it is a journey, and won’t change immediately.

I like what Seth is saying at the end of his post, and as my boss is one of the person who actually does it, and it is seen as a quality: “Say it without rushing and without stress. “I’m sorry, our time is up.””

The first time I read about the constant of being late, was in a post in the popular blog Cup of Jo, “Are You Chronically Late?”, which states the 7 reason of being late. It is worth reading it as it helps to understand what possible reasons makes us being late at work or in the personal life.

Thank you

AnnaJo