How do I stop being late?

[DrWhy]

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.

@TooStressyTooMessy I had no idea they had an app, I’ll give it a shot!

Oh great! I think most of the big supermarkets do. Expect the first few times to take hours but once it gets your favourites saved and you get the hang of it hopefully it will be quick for you.

You have to aim to be very early.

DrWhy but it's not you being disorganised that meant you were late, or your ds missed out. The majority of people would have been late with that schedule. Because it's too much stuff to do with 2 young children. It's nothing to do with your ability to organise and everything to do with basically double booking yourself.

It's done now but in future you have to remember it's okay to say no to things. Your DS won't miss out because he didn't go to the farm one time. Whatever you say about not intending to priotise the farm over your friend, you did. You had a prior engagement with her and chose not to stick to it, you say you are a people pleaser but sometimes when people want to keep everyone happy they end up not making anyone happy because they are trying to please one person at the expense of another.

If you try to do everything you will always be late. There isn't a magic strategy that would help you cram in that much stuff, you just have to say no to some social occasions.

I honestly think it would be good for you to stop caring quite so much about being a good everything. You don't have to be seen as being a good person or a nice person all the time.

Before having a child I was always on time / early

On Nat leave with first child now 20 weeks ... still not “late” by managing expectations and ask for 30 mins either side ... so if early will still arrive on agreed time and not feel like need to squeeze another task in if running early.

Do food shopping online / get dh to pick up bits and bobs needed ( he doesn’t have a pooing / wind milk machine that changes his routine without warning )

I also don’t have a toddler that is being toilet trained as well as the above ... most honest people would have trouble being on time ... try not to squeeze so much in and the set expectations with others ... perhaps be s little kinder to yourself x x

Trying to be too early always goes wrong for me! Usually ends up with trying to deal with a poonami in poor facilities and having to wash the car seat cover.. baby seems to like an 8.40am poo!

I just accepted that with 2 small kids it genuinely takes 10 min just to get us out of the house. I mean literally at least 10 min from me saying put your shoes and coats on to actually reversing off my drive. And that’s assuming we’re all dressed and fed and bags are packed waiting to go.

And then when you get to your destination it takes time to get out of the car. And then it takes a long time to leave anywhere. Especially if the kids don’t want to go. So basically I add 10-15 min onto everything to account for faffing by said small children

You need to talk to your DH and make a different plan for the mornings.

Can I just add a really simple thing. Now DS is potty trained, plan in toilet time. Like leaving the farm, you're thought should have been x amount of time to gather stuff together and get kids in the car plus 5 mins to go to the toilet. It would have saved you 2 trips.

I know it takes 10 mins from putting shoes on to being in the car but now DD isn't in nappies I add 3 mins and we always go to the toilet when we are leaving somewhere, even if she doesn't need it. DD has been trained since Sept and this doesn't affect her ability to know when she needs to go and to tell me.

You keep thinking, "I have loads of time so I'll just..." you need to think, "today I am doing X Y or Z" and not add anything else on.

whodafeck DH took DS in the bathroom with him this morning without me even asking (he’d had a bad night and DH had taken him into the spare room with him about 3ish so had him anyway) ironically DD was up feeding anyway from 6.30 but he tried!

Lost5Stone this maybe wasn’t clear in my OP, I did take DS to the toilet on the way out of the farm, the rule is that he always has to try before we leave somewhere and when we arrive somewhere (after a longish trip at least). He’d gone in, tried, not been successful, got back to the car then decided actually he did need to go (which it turns out he did - I guess being in loos he hadn’t been in before made him too uncomfortable the first time - or some other crazy toddler logic). I do need to build the toilet time into leaving places though and it’s not 3 minutes, it often takes longer than that to actually get him to sit down on the potty or toilet, plus waiting time once he’s there, plus hand washing time... I need to actually time some things.

I agree with who about needing a new routine in the mornings where both you and DH have roles and it doesn't involve you asking him stuff. You're not his manager, and shouldn't be carrying the mental load here. "he gets up, goes straight in the bathroom for 30 mins then is dressed and out the door 5 mins after that" well that's the kind of luxurious solitary routine you can have as a single person or when you're creeping around at 5am for an early commute before the household wakes up.

He needs to get DS up and dressed while you shower, park him with a bowl of weetabix and go up and have his shower when you come down with the baby. Or vice versa. But if you have two kids you should be able to divide and conquer

Right im knackered just reading that.Having had 3 kids close in age,you just have to dress the 2 1/2 year old.Otherwise you are going nowhere.
Do 1 activity a day
Have your shower the night before and bath the kids the night before as well.
Do online shopping or waitt ill DH is home and go out and do it then.
Dont do that to your friend again,she might just get pissed off and not want to meet you again.

DrWhy ahh yes I just saw you did mention this in your OP, apologies.

Other than that, as PP have said focus on doing less and not worry about pleasing everyone. I would have cancelled the farm when you knew you would be late and just say to DS sorry we can't go today but we will another day etc, he would accept that and get over it in a couple of minutes.

Ah OP it sounds like we have very much in common - down to getting overloaded in crowded places and feeling the need to fill every minute.

Have you seen the film 'Up' with the scary attack dogs whose lose all track of what they are doing when one of them shouts 'squirrels' ; and they all bound away forgetting their job? DP often shouts 'squirrels' at me when I have completely abandoned/forgotten what I'm supposed to be doing .

I am another whose timekeeping could use improvement. Two tips I’ve learned:
It’s already been said but treat physically getting shoes on and into the car as an activity. More if you have to get to a car park. Likewise getting out of a car, buying a ticket, walking into the place- all these things take so much longer with a child or two in tow and you can’t just jog if you’re a minute late and make it up like when gig we’re by yourself.

Another I’ve learned from MN- don’t make the mistake of timing things and then picking your best time to treat as how long something takes. If you’ve done a journey in 10min once, that does not mean “that journey takes 10 min”. It took 10min that one time. Average might be 15 and worst case 20- so pick the 20 and use that to plan your timings. Plus you need 5 min either end for getting in and out of the car. Otherwise you end up trying to get somewhere that takes 30 min in just 10 and you get bewildered and frustrated because you know you did it once before.

You planned too much but didn't plan enough time to prepare for any of it.
What you did in a day, I'd plan over a week.
I also always prepare bag coats snacks etc hours before we leave, might before if it's an am outing.

I'm very organised and I get stressed easily so no way would I have planned that amount of stuff in one day.

Today we have been to a swim lesson first thing and then home to play. Then park. Then home again for the rest of the day. And that has been plenty.