I seems to be constantly chasing my tail and running from one thing to another getting progressively later for each one despite being on maternity leave and actually having very little of any importance to do.
There is yet another thread running in AIBU about late people and the consensus is that they are rude, lazy and care more about their time than your own. I know it’s rude, I hate letting people down but it’s caused by trying to do too much usually rather than laziness. I seem to also have a complete blind spot when it comes to accurately estimating how long it will take to do anything. For full disclosure, I have a job when I’m not on mat leave, it has flexible hours and I travel to work with DH in the mornings, he is usually in the car with the engine running when I leave the house, I am typically one of the last to arrive at meetings, not unusual to be a couple of minutes late - it’s never been mentioned at an appraisal but I’m sure it’s noticed. I’ve missed one plane and a couple of trains - I know leave myself a huge margin for things like this but still frequently end up ‘late’ compared to the time my plan expected me to be there. So it’s not just irritating to other people it impacts my own life.
A typical example, one day a week I have DS 2.5 home in the morning and take him and DD (5 months) to playgroup, then I drop him at nursery for lunch and take DD to swimming. This week was school holidays so no playgroup and no swimming lesson - should have been really chillled. However, I agreed to meet a friend for swimming with our babies instead. Thought meeting for lunch beforehand would be fine as DS was eating at nursery so agreed 12.30 in sports centre centre cafe, plenty of time before a nursery meeting at 4pm. Some playgroup friends were meeting at a farm park at 10.30-11ish so I said we’d go earlier, see them briefly than I’d get DS to nursery. What actually happened was that despite being up at 7 with DS, when DH left at 7.45 we had showered but I was getting dressed and DS was refusing to get dressed. It then took me until 10.30 to get me dressed, DS dressed, DD changed, fed and dressed, everybody breakfasted, the changing bag topped up, DS to sit on the potty, everything including the children into the car. So we arrived at the farm park at 10.45 - around 30 mins before we needed to leave. I stressed about feeling guilty at dragging DS away so quickly so called nursery to see if they could keep his lunch if he was half an hour later, which they said was fine and called my friend to see if she was happy to eat with her baby and I’d join them once they’d finished, also fine. So I reset my leaving time by half an hour. 10 minutes before we needed to leave I started trying to get moving - I can’t really pick up DS with DD in the sling so lots of persuading, cajoling etc we finally get moving, have the compulsory before we get in the car loo stop with lots of protesting. Get to the car, get DD in car seat, DS says he needs a wee, DD back in sling, back to the loos, DS has his wee, back in the car, now 10 minutes late for the rearranged late time. Drop DS in nursery, feel massively guilty that he’s now having lunch on his own. Arrive at pool, feel massively guilty that friend is hanging about waiting having finished her lunch. Go swimming, friend leaves early as her baby is not enjoying it. Sit in pool cafe and feed baby, think, I’ve got an an hour to kill before DS nursery meeting, I’ll pop into Asda nearby and get some stuff we need. Walk to car, get DD into car, drive a few mins to supermarket, get DD out of car, dither over shopping, try to find stuff in unfamiliar supermarket, realise I need to leave in 10 minutes to be on time for nursery meeting, try to find that one last item, join checkout queue and realise I should be leaving in 2 mins, get everything to car, get DD in, DH calls to check where I am as he’s at the nursery gate, I break down in tears as I’m letting people down by being late yet again. All totally avoidable.
I try to fit too much in, am unrealistic about how long things take, am bad at leaving one thing to get on to the next, get caught chatting to people and don’t know how to get away. I also struggle to get the children organised and moving although I can’t entirely blame them as I was very similar before.
How do people manage to be on time? What practical strategies do you use? I’ve tried building in contingency but I somehow know it’s not a ‘real’ deadline so I’ve usually used it by the time I leave the house. Google maps helps for planning journey times but how do you plan how long it will take to do something? How do you leave a job you haven’t finished or walk away from a conversation?
Help please, I know I need to sort this out, I just somehow can’t make it happen.