An insight into the mindset of someone who is persistently late.

[deviantfeline]

There's always loads of posts on AIBU about people who hate those who are persistently late and how there no excuse for it. Also lots of people claiming 'time blindness' or inability to plan that causes it.

I'm often late. I hate it but my brain doesn't seem to be able to calculate periods of time in a way that means I can plan appropriately. Today was one of those even though I thought I totally had this. Reflecting on what went wrong here's a timeline.

I needed to get a train at 12pm to a meeting. They are once an hour and so couldn't miss it. I set an alarm at 11am that told me to go and get ready to leave for the station. It's a 3 minutes drive and a 2 minute walk from the car park. I know that at this time it's hard to get a parking spot so I factor in time to find one. I'll leave at 11.40 ish then. I spent the morning working from home.

11- alarm goes off. I think oh I've got loads of time and carry on working thinking I'll stop at 11.15 and get myself ready.
11.15 - think I'll finish the email I'm writing
11.23 - finish email and pack bag
Realise my make up and hair need a touch up and I've got loads of time so do that
11.32 - result. I'm done and ready to go with time to spare. This is easy! Find coat and shoes, locate car and door keys, put cups in dishwasher, find umbrella as it's now raining and my phone charger, kiss dog goodbye and give her a treat, lock up house.
Get in car. Somehow it's now 11.47?! How the hell did that happen? It was 11.32 wasn't it? Fuck fuck fuck.
11.52 - arrive at car park having had to stop at a zebra for 2 mins for loads of people crossing. Hadn't factored in the high street would busy as it's midday.
No car parks as predicted! Drive back up the street and finally find one. It's 11.58. Grab my stuff and sprint and get on the train as the doors are closing.

Despite my planning i screwed it up again. I've noticed that I have a time blindness for the time it takes between 'I'm ready' and actually going. In my mind that would take 30 seconds yet it somehow took 15 minutes?!

Its almost worse when I leave plenty time as my brain starts telling me I've got time to do other stuff rather then just leaving! Also I can't visualise the time passing since I looked at the time at 11.32 and getting in the car. That time seems to be the black spot for me to time manage with any ability.

Crisis only slightly averted but I'm soo cross with myself. So you 'on timers'. What would you have done differently and what was my biggest error?

A rural area that's got a very busy high street with pedestrian crossings, a train station and loads of people and cars 3 mins away?

That urbanisation came in fast! 🤔

To add, I would never be blase or laugh about lateness. I know it isn't funny, charming or a loveable quirk. It's something I wholeheartedly struggle with. Full apology if it does happen, and I'd always make up the time. WFH was a boon.

It depends how many flights you have taken. If you have missed 2 but been on time for 20 it still suggests you are way more likely to be on time for things that matter to you or entail significant financial costs to being late.

It is an interesting insight into the mind of the perpetually late. I am the opposite in that I am perpetually early.

In this scenario, I would be aiming to leave at 11.30 latest but inevitably would be early out the door. I would ensure that I was ready to go at 11 - so that any time between 11 - 11.30 was completely free (and I would work in that time). The bag would be packed, I would be ready, the doors locked - so literally picking up bag and leaving.

You are not building in much buffer and instead of using it as 'buffer' you fill it with other tasks.

I much much rather be early and calm - and fill my time 'waiting' than be rushed and late or keep other people waiting.

I think many times ‘time blindness’ is used as an excuse for not trying hard enough. But my husband also cannot seem to assess periods of time and how long a particular task will take up. He has always been quite unrealistic with time projections and things always take him longer than expected and it frequently makes him late. You’d think he would learn from it, but I see him putting due diligence into trying to work out time projections and it genuinely seems to be a mental barrier. He is like this at work and at home, so I know it’s not a behaviour he reserves for being ‘useless at home’ – he’s not, he tries very hard and often stays up late finishing things because he said he would.

I do think different brains are geared towards different skills. He does, for example, have excellent spatial awareness and a phenomenal long-term memory for detail. I’m terrible at those things.

@CrazyGoatLady because you can't just "give up" when people criticise you. Life is full of challenges and most of us would rather avoid them. I understand that some things are more challenging for certain people. People who have physical disabilities are constantly having to negotiate a path through life. Take advice and work on self management because it won't get better on it's own. I know people judge, that's the way of it.

What would I have done differently?

When your phone alerted you at 11 am I would have stopped what I was doing and got ready. I would have done nothing else except prepare to leave the house, right down to bag, keys and coat next to the door. If I still had time to finish the email I would have set a timer on my phone for 5 minutes before I needed to walk out the door and then finished the email. I would not have started anything else once I'd finished the email even if I still had time left. I would have left the house as soon as the email was done and allowed myself the extra time for getting to the station.

That's why I get ready and go. The more I faff , the more likely I am to consider not going,postponing etc. especially if I'm not actually meeting someone or something I definitely have to do that day.I also figured out that if I don't go when I feel the "urge" odds are it isn't happening at all.

I also use alarms sparingly, so once it goes my brain is trained now to be go ,go ,go.

So get dressed, hair and immediately out. By the time I made down the block my brain catches up and it starts flapping, but by then I'm already out.

I think that's interesting, because I do get cross with people who laugh when they're late or act all ditsy or expect me to sort stuff.

BucketBouquet Are you my daughter?! I do the running commentary thing as I sling mugs into the dishwasher too!

OP, this is all horribly familiar to me. I hate, hate, hate being late, and plan so carefully - but like you, the one minute that it should take between "being ready to go" and actually leaving the house seems to bend time in a way that Stephen Hawking himself would have struggled to explain.

I also resent being early, because I always have a million things to do and therefore dislike the wasted time. So I aim to arrive "just in time", but invariably that ends up being late.

But there is a difference between misspelling sometimes and being late sometimes and "I am always late and there is nothing I can do about it so everyone else has to suck it up" That's the rude bit.

There seems to be a "resentment" of being early, which results in being late. Why resentful? Use the time to check your phone calendar or schedule, look at the news headlines or just chill and think lovely thoughts!

What's the point in setting an alarm if you're going to ignore it? That's where this fell apart, you chose to ignore the alarm, or you wouldn't have been late.

Hair can take close half an hour. Bum length thick thick hair on the youngest in multiple plaits. School book reading happens while also doing hair.

They are just key point remember alarms that this should have happened or be happening by now. To make sure we are not late. But the morning is for three children in different schools with different activities with different pack ups, prepping my work for the day as well.

But it is leisurely I don’t want to be flying by my pants rushing. That’s the point zero stress never late.

I have this problem. Time just vanished and I have no idea where it’s gone. It’s got a lot worse since having children. I think looking after them has used up all my executive function (I am diagnosed autistic and suspected adhd). I’m going to look into using some kind of app as every system I have tried so far doesn’t seem to work. It’s like the time just flies away somewhere. Also it’s all very well saying you just need a specific place for keys etc. With inattentive adhd it just doesn’t work like that, I have a specific place for all my important things but it doesn’t stop me putting them somewhere else at least once a week because I became distracted by something when I entered the house

Yep some people are just poor at working out how much time they have. It’s like those who are driving to meet you and are already late and say “I have just set off, I’ll be there in 5 minutes” yet 30 minutes later they still have not arrived then always find a way to blame it on someone/ something else. It’s obvious the journey is never going to take only 5 minutes even if you were on time when you actually live 30 minutes away!

Just like those who say they can get from A to B in 30 minutes as it’s only a 30 minute drive when in reality the journey time is more like 45-50 minutes without factoring in time for traffic jams, road works etc. yet the refuse to set off until 30 minutes before. It’s just really bad time planning and if you try to tell them any different they will come up with some reason why they are right and you’re wrong.

Not really. I'm telling you, it's isn't about laziness or lack of care or whatever you think it is. Yes I've missed a flight, and been a week early to an interview (twice). However , with ADHD, generally a one off is a lot easier than a routine to maintain.

Plus flights have a lot.more redundancy built in, time wise, than work so by their nature are actually harder to miss than to be late for work. We all mostly have a couple of hours in mind before takeoff.

Repeating my earlier question - if you know you’re usually late for whatever reason, do you warn people about that when arranging to meet them?

I don’t mean sending a text saying you’re going to be late, 5 mins before / after the meet-up time. I mean mentioning it when you’re making plans with them, especially if the plans are time-sensitive.

The thing with ADHD is that you have to put strategies in place. Becoming aware of what happens is the biggest battle because when you know, there are ways to mitigate it. For example, you now know that getting ready takes you X time. That's knowledge you can now use to plan the next time. If you don't use the knowledge you've gained to change your strategy then it's Groundhog Day. You need to find a better way that works for you specifically, as what you're doing clearly doesn't.

I have ADHD and am now habitually early to things because over the years I've learnt things about myself and how my brain works and I now have strategies to put in place. Whenever I go anywhere, I have in my head now distinct times I need to finish different phases of things. So for school run we have to leave the house at 8:35, that's a hard limit that I can't miss. So everything before that has 'slots' where stuff needs to be done by.

The way not to be late is to plan to be early. It's very easy to just squeeze a load of things in before the event and to be late, it's just that on time people don't do that. I find perpetually late people disrespectful. They feel their time is more valuable and are happy for other's to sit around and wait.

As straightforward as this advice is, I can assure you if it was me it just wouldn't happen! My ADHD means I have to plan in lots of additional time and despite that I am still often very last minute.

@deviantfeline You asked what would others have done differently? Where you went wrong? I think there were two issues.

You thought you had completed the task of Getting Ready at 11.32am, but you hadn't.

Getting Ready includes:
Toilet
Comb hair and fix makeup
Brush teeth
Pack bag
Find coat
Find shoes
Put on shoes
Put on coat
Find car keys
Find house keys
Put keys in pocket
Find phone charger
Check weather
Find umbrella
Kiss dog goodbye and give her a treat
Lock up house

The second issue was that you need an accurate estimate of how long Getting Ready takes, maybe 15-20 minutes? So if you wanted to leave at 11.40, set the alarm for 11.20 to start getting ready, and when the alarm goes off IMMEDIATELY DO IT. Don't "just" finish off something else. The alarm at 11.20 means Get Ready Now. I think by setting alarms way too early, you know you can ignore them because they're not actually meaningful. You are teaching yourself that alarms can be ignored, which is your downfall.

And it does take trial and error and it's frustrating but you also need to have self-awareness and use the knowledge you gain when things go wrong. Next time you go to the train station, what can you put in place? You now know that when there's an hour till your train you do not have lots of time to do X, Y, Z, so what are you going to do with that knowledge? That's what matters.

My DSIS, DH and best friend are all like this to a degree. As someone who works in an appointment-based job who needs to run to time and is naturally an overly organised person it drives me mad.

Some common things I have noticed among them

1. They get distracted by non-essential things which don't need to be done at that time (so like putting mugs in the dishwasher, wiping down the work top, sending a text message that could be done sitting on the train). None of which take long in themselves but just add a few minutes delay.
2. They don't get things organised in advance - so are running around packing their bag, looking for keys, getting water bottles at the last minute
3. They don't seem to have any sense of urgency when they are running late, just keep meandering around doing all of the above rather than picking up the pace a bit and getting things done quicker.
4. They don't factor in external factors like traffic or train/parking problems which might delay them. They just leave at the last possible minute (or later) that would get them there bang on time IF nothing goes wrong on the way.

I am very aware that I probably take things too far the other way however! 😳

Routine works. Not 100% of the time , but at least 90%.

So during the work week I always have my wallet in my work bag(I only have one for work ) and don't take it out. When I get home, I drop the keys back in my work bag as soon as I take them out of the door before I do anything else. I don't allow myself to do anything else first.I also have my own hook right in front of me as I come in so if I don't put them in my bag then they go on the hook automatically. Of course, when they're not in either place (it happens rarely,but it still happens) then I'm completely lost as I have no idea where they might be.I've also left the house with no keys a few times.

Took me a while to get to this point though, so it's not an instant change and fuck ups still happen.