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?

personally I think that people who are "absolutely unable" to manage their time don't exist. They would have boiled kettles dry, overcooked food (maybe set it alight) be overwhelmed with parking tickets, have lost their jobs and so on. I do accept that some people have more difficulty with time management than others, just as some people are dyslexic. In both cases there are strategies that can help.

Fair. But not everyone who is late is 'making no effort'. People who take that attitude ARE rude but I can assure you that's not how I operate. I, and many other posters, have explained how we hate being late too and are so sorry to be messing people about. I have tried many, many strategies to mitigate it, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't but it's not done maliciously.

I can absolutely appreciate how it comes across though and only you can decide how you choose to respond.

@FlowersOfSulphur a change of mind set is needed. So rather than aiming to be on time , aim to be x minutes early(increase the time of x as you slowly adjust). It helps with the resentment if you plan something for those "extra minutes".

So something like "Oh I have x minutes to check my emails/top up lunch account/pay this/check that , finish my book chapter, browse that shop, get a coffee , whatever in peace and quiet." Those little things that can be done out of the house or regardless of location.

If (big if) you can eventually adjust with a decent amount of time, worst case scenario you'll be on time, best case scenario, you'll be early AND have time to do all those things and check some things off your to do list.

But now you have become aware that you do this surely you can change it.

Strange thing is, if everything is by the door and organised then it would probably not take this length of time. He must have been doing something else too!

On another note, if someone tells me they’re picking me up at a certain time I’m already waiting at the bottom of the stairs near the front door with my coat and shoes already on, bag prepared etc. All I literally need to do is step out of the house and lock the door once they arrive. Again I think it’s completely selfish to make someone wait while they mess about for 8 minutes doing whatever it is they’re doing.

But in my head, I won't be making them wait for me, because I'll be on time (not early, but bang on time). That is my intention and what I earnestly believe is going to happen, every time. I never set out to be late or to keep people waiting.

OP, I am exactly the same as you. I think I've planned my timing, yet somehow time disappears.

After many many years of this, I've finally learnt a few tricks.
When I ever say to myself "Oh, I have plenty of time" or "It'll be fine to do this tomorrow rather than now" these are like alarm signals that I need to do the exact opposite. I do not have plenty of time, and whatever I was planning to put off needs to be done right away.

Also, while I think I can get out of the house in 5 minutes, this is never the case and I need to allow at least 10 minutes extra time for faffing.

Phone alarms are also essential (as you already seem to know) but acting on them rather than just setting them is crucial too.

I wouldn’t leave at 11.40. I’d have left earlier than that if it’s crucial I get the train.

My very organised wife is habitually late. She has a list of things she wants to do before leaving and finds it impossible to deviate from this. She can’t adjust the list as time runs out, as they all need doing! Most people will just think oh I’ll have to leave doing x,y or z but she can’t do that as it interferes with her organised life. Weird combination. Organised but late.

People who are perpetually late often put it down to them having millions of things to do - but the people that i know who are perpetually late are also typically not very productive generally. In that they are not generally getting any more done than anyone else - and often getting less done that people who are on time or early.

They think they are busy but quite often just wasting time in unproductive ways or focussing way too much time on what appears to the observer to be 'nothing' or just 'faff'. Picking up something and putting it somewhere and then changing their mind and retrieving it and putting it somewhere else. Spending ages rooting around for something that is not immediately needed. Starting conversations with people about unimportant matters seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are already late.

Yes, that's a good idea! I will try that, thank you.

I'm persistently early. Because I aim to be early, and then if I'm late in actually on time.

Do your factoring in as if you need to be somewhere 20-30 minutes earlier than you do. Then when you get sidetracked for 15 minutes you're still leaving on time.

Being late does send a message to others that your time is more important than theirs.

Things like loading the dishwasher must take longer than you think! I think the problem was things between you being ready and actually leaving the house. Maybe once you are ready you need to immediately leave and save jobs for later?

My dh doesn’t have ADHD but I swear, he actively enjoys arriving at the very last minute for e.g. flights. At least, he used to, before I put my foot very firmly down, after we had (yet again) to run through the airport with ‘last call’ flashing, and getting on the plane to find the crew waiting to shut the doors behind us!

I just will not do that any more!

They would have boiled kettles dry, overcooked food (maybe set it alight) be overwhelmed with parking tickets, have lost their jobs and so on.

It's fascinating to me that you don't think these things could happen to a person. Just as you can't imagine how it can happen to people I can't quite believe people live lives where it doesn't.

If you had time and it wasn't extremely outing I could tell you all sorts of things just like the above, including every single one of the things you've listed, that I've done that you'd think I was making up.

Your mistake was not following your rule of stopping at 11 to leave. I have ADHD and am chronically early to avoid this scenario. I have a holiday next week and let’s say I’m just glad my husband like airports….we have a layover of 3.5 hours at Heathrow and I’m stressed that isn’t long enough….

I have ADHD and my brain works like the OPs here, but I HATE being late so I'm always 'okay this drive takes an hour and I need to be there at 3 but it's a football match so it'll be busy so I need to be there at 2:30, so I'll leave home at 1pm in case there's traffic' and DP says 'maps says 45 minutes, we'll leave at 1:45. It gives me the fear

The best tip I was ever given was 'do any jobs under 15 mins now'. Don't wait, or come up with a fancy strategy. They don't all get done immediately, but that is so liberating and gives me so much peace of mind when I have so few natural time management skills.

It infuriated me just reading this 😅. Basically you set a time to start getting ready, then when that time came decided to ignore it and carry on with what you were doing, then you decided to do lots of extra stuff you hadn’t planned , and you thought you were ready to leave when actually you had around 7? More tasks to complete. Of course you were late!! Just sort it out ffs.

So that is more of a selfish thing then. Sorry but if you know you have to be somewhere at a certain time then you have to be there. End of.

Change how you think.
11 alarm. Start getting ready.
11.30 alarm, you need to have everything done to be out of the door. Nothing else.
Once you are at that point walk out of the house. Yes your early, but there will be no rush. No worries about traffic and parking as you have time.

Always leave 30 mins plus before you need to be there...

@FlowersOfSulphur I manage (mostly) ok but my life is very structured and full of routines, rules and managing techniques.

Give it a go, and give it time. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It happens . The things I found work for me took years to discover,develop and tweak.

Bit late to the thread and lots of interesting perspectives on reasons and impact of lateness, but to the OP, what occurred when I read your post was that you have the self-awareness to realise you are a late person, and you make a plan and set alarms and so on, but you haven't got the self-awareness to tell yourself to ignore the voice that is saying 'plenty of time, can just do xyz'. That's the part where you need a bit of self-discipline. I don't think it's that helpful to make a more precise plan - to know e.g. you need precisely 4 minutes to do x task and 8 minutes to do x task and then add 3 minutes of flex etc. It isn't about learning how long things take, you already know that. It's about learning to ignore the voice that says you have plenty of time left and can do xyz extra tasks.

There are lots of occasions in life when we need to ignore an inner voice, e.g. - 'I can't do this, I'm too tired' when part way through a long walk, 'just one more glass' the night before a big meeting when you really want a clear head, 'it can wait until tomorrow' when really we need bread and milk today etc. All of us probably sometimes have a hard time ignoring the inner voice, it's hard.

But now you know this is your problem, and it is only this that you need to change, then you can start to be really firm with yourself about that part. Your plan was great, your mistake was not sticking to it - it was the perfect act of self-sabotage.

I see it as very similar to dyslexia as in it needs strategising and managing rather than is fully impossible but yes, I've done all these things (onv I have an electric kettle so this was a rare thing camping, ive boiled pans dry, burnt food, have a timer now) except parking tickets (don't drive, epilepsy).

Similarly to dyslexia, I feel the judgement is misplaced. It's not about other people's time. I simply find it very difficult to manage my own. It causes a lot of guilt.

I'm always early.
But it's not easy
I try not to do last minute jobs.
Like we do understand.
We do make allowances but sometimes we just have had enough.
We also have stuff to be be doing.

You being late has a knock on effect for others as well.