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?

I know exactly EXACTLY what you are describing. I can’t get it right.
I am persistently early for this reason. If I want to be on time I HAVE to leave an hour before I should or I just can’t be on time.

What I say to myself is that it’s better to be early. I can keep busy when there if I have to but being late gives the message that ‘I feel more important than you’ and I don’t want that!

My answer is to leave ridiculously early if you want to be on time. It’s not ideal but it’s better than feeling guilty all the time. Good luck.

When your alarm goes off at 11, INSTEAD of thinking, "I have plenty of time, I'll finish my email" you should be thinking, "I would like to finish my email but I know from experience that if I do then I will be late or nearly late and it will be stressful." Stop your email and shift to your next step.

The time from 11:23 to 11:47 is your "getting ready" time. If your hair and makeup usually do not need a touch-up, you might be able to flex this time, but if in reality they are part of your last step before leaving the house then you need to account for that step. To get out of the house, you need to shift that time to be earlier.

I think in practice it is rare to be precisely on time. We are usually either a bit early or a bit late. If you want to be consistently "a bit early" instead of "a bit late" or "screeching into your destination with tires burning" then you need to accept that there will be some dead time when you arrive at your destination a few minutes early.

I do also think that people who tend to be chronically "a bit late" do things a bit more slowly than others. It always amazes me that I have to start getting ready an hour ahead of leaving the house. What takes so long? I have no idea. But if I reduce that time, I'm late, even though in theory my estimated hour should leave plenty of dead time and in theory should easily be cut down to 45 minutes. When I think about what happens when I cut that time down, it's that I rush out of the house without my wallet, I forgot to brush my hair, I realize I'm wearing one navy and one black shoe and I have to go back. When I leave myself the whole hour, I carefully place my wallet in my bag, I slowly brush my hair and take an extra minute to put the hairbrush back where it belongs, I turn on the light in the closet and remind myself that I have black and navy blue shoes in the same style and that I need to make sure I have the right set before I leave the house. I go back and turn off the light in the closet because I don't want to leave it on all day. I go make sure I put the brush back in the correct drawer. Where are my keys? Oh yes, they're in the drawer with the brush. (Why? I don't know why). I get them back out and put them back in my pocket. I'm just a slowpoke. It's frustrating to take long to do these things when other people seem to get more done in less time, but it is what it is. My husband, by contrast, when he's ready to go, he just gets in his car and goes.

I’d have wanted to be at the station by 11.40, not leave at that time.

The whole description sounds chaotic and stressful. Why set an alarm for 11 and then ignore it? Why were you surprised by the fact that getting out of the house took you some time?

Honestly, disabilities apart, I have very little sympathy for people who are always late and I think picturing the world as being made up of two different types of people is just an excuse and one which entrenches poor behaviour. On this occasion you only inconvenienced yourself but by and large people are late because they don’t care about inconveniencing others. If you cared, you wouldn’t be late.

Just what I was going to say@RootToVictory why set an alarm if you’re going to ignore it?
Pack your bag the night before, and always leave early for driving , parking issues. Three minutes and two minutes for these is just not realistic.

It's not that they value their time more it's just they don't realise they're going to be late, I mean ideally no one is wasting 10-15 mins of their time either way if everyone is on time. No one is leaving the house thinking "I'm gonna be late but IDGAF" they're trying to be on time but just bad at planning it.

I’m never on time. I’m persistently early. I think people are generally either early or late, it’s very hard to get the timing bang on unless it’s a journey you do time and time again. Choose which one you want to be.

I think for you there’s a massive time difference between when you’re physically ready and when you’re mentally ready. It took you so long to be mentally ready to go, that you didn’t plan time to physically get ready to go. Just sounds like a lot of faffing and procrastination.

if I’m ready to go, I am literally just grabbing my keys, locking the door and going. I’m not doing makeup/hair/putting shoes on/loading dishwasher (wtf?) or faffing with the dog.

Knowing you have this issue, your first problem was not getting set in your mind that you had to be on the platform at 11.15am. Then think and act like you genuinely need to be there at 11.15am, then you’ll probably arrive at 11.30/11.40am and be able to sit for a bit and enter the train in a calm manner on the front door as they say.

It is hard to get it bang on. I mean people should probably aim for 5-10 mins early but anything other than that would be too much hanging around (for me) over the course of a lifetime that's probably entire days wasted just waiting!

Try telling yourself the train is at 11.45. But really, really sticking to that.

@Firefly1987 true but that's 10-15 min of your time wasted hanging about

Someone who is chronically time challenged/disorganised/doesn’t know where time goes/avoids being late by the seat of their pants by having to panic at the end, just can’t view it through this lens. They need a mental reset. Turn time wasted into ‘an opportunity’ to listen to a podcast, play a game on phone, read Mumsnet, do online banking, reply to unanswered emails or texts from friends etc. Essentially make ‘time wasted’ into another achievement.

For me 'ready to go' means stepping out of the door, not 'start faffing with hair/dog/email/bag/make up' etc.

I have to add in time to sort out wheelchairs, DP to move chairs/dogs etc, so I always build an extra 15 minutes in for that, plus another 10 for parking/getting chair out at the other end.

DP would, given free choice, set off to sort all this stuff out at 5 minutes to 'the time we need to be there at the appointment' as his brain seems to think all the faffing about between 'deciding to start the leaving process' and 'actually arriving somewhere' doesn't exist.

Have a few alarms set, label them diff things.
Get ready soon
Time to leave

You sound far too relaxed about it all for someone who's chronically late. You need to put yourself under a bit more pressure and be a bit more organised. You need multiple alarms, maybe packing your bag and having it put by the door with your coat the night before. Tell yourself you've no time at all , it's how I'm rarely late with my adhd.

I used to be just like that OP. And I still am if I don’t care about the thing I’m going to. But I realised in my early 20s when I started a job where I’d get fired if I was late without a good excuse, that I just couldn’t afford the oh-I’ve-got-plenty-of-time moments. So if I plan to stop at 11, I stop at 11. When I start to think “Oh, I’ll just finish this email.” I stop myself and think - “No. It’s time to get ready.”, If I notice my makeup needs doing, I take the makeup bag so I can do it once I’m on the train. etc. I know it takes me 20 minutes to leave the house or office unless I’m prepared to ignore everyone/thing. So I either factor that 20 mins in or I don’t kiss the dog/put the dishes in the dishwasher/answer people’s questions/etc.

It’s about being really disciplined about distractions when it’s important. I found it hard at first. Spent almost as long dithering about whether to do something or not as had been spending doing it! But eventually it became a “mode” that I could enter and automatically push the distraction to one side and refocus on getting to wherever I’m going. I have standard phrases I use when someone asks me something as I’m getting ready for something else e.g. “Sorry, I’ll have to get back to you later.” And I use them almost without thinking. Because the more I think about other things, the more likely I am to get out of my “mode” and risk being late.

I have still had the odd occasion when I can’t find my car keys or something. But now I’m late (or getting there by the skin of my teeth, stressed and sweaty) once a year, not several times a week.

If it was something important and the trains only run once per hour, I would have been on the 11am train. What if the 12pm was cancelled or really late?

Can always have a coffee and some doom scrolling to kill time at the other end.

You knew the car park might be full, but didn’t factor that in. I’d have left at half past. There is no point in your 11am alarm if you ignore it. Be more disciplined. Put your work down. Pack your bag, do your hair and leave on time. Being 30 seconds late is no good. You may as well have not bothered. And if you know you are that bad, aim for sn earlier train. It’s not hard.

YABU. Totally.

You're a grown adult, and you KNOW when you need to leave etc etc etc. You just need some mental discipline. You stop work at 11am. You give yourself 5 minutes to do your hair. You get to your meeting.

Unless, of course, you think you're so important that others can wait for you?

Because, you see, I tend to think that people who are persistently late are arrogant arses, who give no consideration to other people's time.

If I"m waiting for someone who is persistently late, I give them 5 minutes then I'm off, or I start the meeting, or whatever. And you know what? It's amazing (to me) how ANGRY they get.

Sorry op but I have to agree with this poster. I don’t mind if people have a genuine reason for being late ie. Stuck in traffic, reasons beyond their control etc. but when someone is persistently late for everything then it has repercussions for people on the receiving end of it.

“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.”

Personally I’m not sure how you think you could have fitted all that in and expect to be out of the house earlier than the time you have stated. You need to keep your shoes, coat and car keys in a place you know where they’ll be so that you can just grab them rather than having to search for them at the very last minute. You say that at 11.32 you were done and ready to go but you were not. You did not have your coat and shoes on and keys in your hand ready to lock the door, you say you had to find them first.
Putting cups in the dishwasher takes time. Searching for your umbrella and phone charger takes time. Touching up makeup takes time. Kissing the dog and giving her a treat takes time. You clearly didn’t have time.

Rather than having to find things in the last 5 minutes or so, you need to find them plenty of time beforehand - maybe the night before so they are already there for you to just grab and walk out the door. I mean what if you couldn’t find them in time and ended up missing your train? Kissing the dog is not a priority. Putting cups in the dishwasher - why do this when you should be already on your way to the station? As other pp have said, you need to prioritise your time. If you need to be out then you need to be out and a lot of these things could have been done well before 11.32. Maybe even sorted the night before or earlier in the morning?

As much as I understand people have problems with time keeping, it is frustrating to be constantly on the receiving end of someone who should be in a certain place at a certain time and having to wait for them. I would be pretty pissed if I had arranged to meet someone and they rocked up late because they decided to do things like load things into the dishwasher or touch up their makeup or search for things right at the last minute when they should have already been out of the house.
Im not sure what would have happened if you’d missed the train but I imagine your boss wouldn’t have been happy if you’d been told to be there at a certain time and you didn’t have a genuine reason for being late and knowing that the train only runs every hour.

I could have written this. It's almost exactly my thought process anytime I have to be somewhere on a deadline. That black hole of minutes between thinking 'I'm going to leave now' and actually getting in the car is what I struggle with most - all those micro tasks add up and I can never account for them in my brain.

Even the school run which I've done literally hundreds of times - leaving 'on time' and actually getting the kids buckled in their seats is a wildly variable thing so very often I'm newly surprised when I actually turn the car on and look at the clock.

I don't have any advice, just solidarity.

This!! I always get the earlier train no matter what. Things can go wrong such as delays or trains being cancelled. I don’t think I could decide that I now need to start getting ready 30 minutes before train sets off. I quite like getting to the station/ venue early and being able to relax with a Costa or whatever knowing that there is no stress or rushing about or wondering if I will be late.

I was also going to say this, given you're always late, I probably would've got the earlier one and worked the hour in the office prior to the meeting not wfh. Also if there were likely to not be carparks I'd probably give a bigger buffer. I always aim to be at the place 15 or 20 minutes earlier if it's important, too much can go wrong

I really should stop posting to these threads. I make OP look like a paragon of organised timekeeping Before you all ask: yes, I have missed planes, important interviews and meetings, exams and surgeries. I have had to warn employers about my time blindness. And - another thing the timely always "bet you never" - I am also ridiculously early for some things. Last month I sent a birthday present, card and text message eight days early.

I mean, I'm always open to fresh approaches (I've saved @Izzosaura's post above, though I already do most of her suggestions) but it is a fucking disability.

Of course I don't mind waiting if I'm early. Or if I'm on time, but my understanding friends lied about our meeting time 😂 I'd be a right hypocrite to play my face about others being late, wouldn't I?

Why did it take you 15 mins to pick up your keys, pick up umbrella and put mugs in dishwasher ? That's a couple of mins tops. Did you get distracted doing something else ?

But what is the “black hole of minutes between thinking 'I'm going to leave now' and actually getting in the car is what I struggle with most - all those micro tasks add up and I can never account for them in my brain”. What is it that you actually do during that time that makes you so late and could you not have put steps in place beforehand to make sure you could manage your time?

It’s quite easy to manage if you plan in advance. I always write a to-do list which includes what I assume you call the black hole of minutes - it always works fine for me and I’m not late.