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?

Thank you. I shall try harder.

it’s rude and disrespecit’s rude and disrespectful @Coopee so do you tell people when you make plans that you won't be there at the agreed time? Or do they just wait to find out?

But what OP has demonstrated with her description of what happens to her when she tries to get somewhere on time (and she made it in this example, but says she’s often late so I’m assuming that quite often her techniques aren’t sufficient) is that she is valuing her time (and other preferences) over others’. Because she’s set an alarm, but she doesn’t stop then, she finishes her email (which means she won’t have to do it later and she gets that dopamine fix for doing it under pressure), and then she notices she doesn’t look as good as she’d like to, so she stops and fixes that, and then she see’s she has loads of time when she’s “ready to go” and despite knowing that she’s often late she doesn’t stop herself from loading the dishwasher (which she won’t have to do later) and bonding with her dog (which is, no doubt, a lot more fun than waiting on the platform), etc. She does all that stuff. This is her routine, even though she knows it doesn’t work well because she’s often late. But she hasn’t changed it.

Similar stories from others. And another poster even justified their being late by talking about their “neurological pain” as though the people they make wait for them are just fine and dandy about sitting around with nothing to do while she misses the train because she can’t abide the thought of having to wait on the platform and hasn’t found a way to occupy her mind when these things happen.

Meanwhile there are also posts on here from people who struggle but have found effective ways not to keep others waiting. None of us are saying it’s easy. We recognise the struggle because we live with it. We’ve just not given up and pretended it was okay to foist the cost onto others when our earlier attempts at fixing it failed.

I’m not saying people should be shamed for struggling with it. But if you’re frequently late at others expense and you aren’t trying out something to change that - you are valuing yourself over others. Either own that, or try and change it.

I have similar issues. My coping mechanisms:

1. Watch goes on before I get out of bed. Much harder to lose track of the time
2. As much as possible packed and ready to go by the door the night before.
3. Five minute alarm to tell me it’s time to go - that gives me 5 minutes of faffing.
4. Never, ever take the last possible train (or bus). I still frequently hammer onto the platform with 2 or 3 minutes to go but it’s the train two before the last one I could take to get to my meeting on time that I risk missing. I’ve never actually missed a train but it’s a lot less stressful to know if I do, it’s annoying not a crisis.

My life is a lot easier these days because I WFH 3 or 4 days a week (the above is for days I don’t). I work flexitime when at home and there’s a log in, log off system on the computer. If I don’t start until 10 minutes after I intended to, that’s fine. The computer will remind me to make up the time later. Various people start at any time between 6 and 10 depending on what they feel like doing so my start time varying by 5 or 10 minutes a day isn’t an issue.

Many responders are NOT neurotypical that literally the point... almost all replies by late people have been excuses, backing up that they didn't even try and laughing it off.

It is literally not an ADHD thing, it is however a narcissistic trait (however even diagnosed narcissists are self aware and actually work on these behaviors). Every responder in the 'late camp' has been completely aware of it and capable of doing it but chose not to.

Jumping to 'everyone is neurotypical meanies who are ablest' is ANOTHER lazy excuse when its already been acknowledged that people are not even attempting to follow the CBT advice because they don't see why they should change. If you refuse all coping strategies and put the effects onto other you ARE just selfish.

I’ve asked that question several times on this thread. ‘If you arrange to meet friends, especially if it’s for something time-sensitive, do you warn them that you’re likely to be late so they can plan accordingly?’

Nobody’s answered yet.

Do people who are persistently late have friends who are also persistently late, and how do you manage that? Do you take into account their lateness and are both late? Do you out-late each other, and is there a point you've been late, they are even later but you don't know if they'll still arrive or if you've missed them completely?

On the waiting list for ADHD, coming to say I often encounter the time ‘black hole’ but I know it’s always my fault, I’ve got caught up replying to an email etc. I now have to make a huge effort to be on time, setting multiple reminders etc. I am usually about 5 mins late at max which I feel is ok all things considered (I have a complicated life).
Daughter is also hugely neurodivergent and I spent a lot of time helping her to time keep/think things through etc.
I have a friend with ADHD who I know would like to see us more but she can’t seem to plan anything in advance so if we do meet it’s usually by default rather than planning. I find this quite irritating, I don’t think we can blame being neurodivergent for bad time keeping etc as adults. We need to learn techniques and take responsibility, whilst acknowledging it’s much harder for us.

Seems the answers just 'how dare you think about how you're affected, you're meant to applaud me for showing up, and offering tons of sympathy and praise for my efforts' Only from some though, several posters on this thread have acknowledged the effects on others and taken responsibility for what needs to be done.

@Coopee ”Until Neurotypical individuals offer compassion and/or at least some understanding”

am I Neurotypical? Depression, anxiety, dyspraxia, misophonia, insomnia and not great executive function. advised by the doctor to apply for PIP after a nervous breakdown last year. Advised by previous doctors to apply for disability benefits going back nearly 30 years now. Decided against it - my choice, I accept that.

The previous poster referring to neurological pain - as I said in my reply- seems to be describing how I feel for a huge amount of time, and this probably applies to many people.

I work hard to make sure my condition doesn’t affect other people. I don’t know what condition they might be facing.

As I was diagnosed a very very long time ago when it was all something to be ashamed of, I I appreciate things are different now.

But ultimately in order to keep a roof over my head there were certain things I had to do.

In order to be part of society, there are certain things I have to do. (I accept that one day it might get too much and I might have to drop out).

In order not to upset people or have an unpleasant effect on their life, there are certain things I have to do.

I accept that there are some people who CANNOT do these. Who absolutely literally cannot do these things under any circumstances and I feel strongly that it would not be right for me to apply for PIP or disability benefits because it should be reserved for such people.

I am not convinced that many of the posters who discussed this on MN are affected to that degree. I think there’s probably a huge percentage of the population who feels the neurological pain described, but we just have to get on with it.

I also don’t think the sort of person who frequently holds up colleagues is literally incapable. In fact it looks like a power exercise in some of the cases described here. And I know with some of the people I’ve mixed with, who are constantly late, it was simply that they did not give a stuff about anyone else’s time. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way after giving second chances.

Final edit - before someone accuses me of being a martyr, only my family and best friend know what my situation is. So no martyrdom here.

I have never known anyone once warn me about their bad timekeeping and punctuality, they just saunter to where they’re supposed to meet me - extremely late btw, maybe come prepared with some lame excuse as to why they’re late or blame it on something or someone else or not even bother to apologise at all. But no, not one person has ever wanted me they’re prone to being late and I’ve not seen a single one of these ‘late comers’ actually respond to that question either - because they don’t bother to warn anyone!

No the perpetually late people (some of them,) WON'T let the person they're meeting know in advance that they may be late, because they're so terribly important and special, and they can't help being late, and that the person they're meeting can wait for them, and as you said, be bloody grateful they actually showed up! 🙄

Probably never end up meeting because they will arrange a time and both will be extremely late and probably won’t even turn up at the same time anyway so one probably has to wait for the other and it ends up getting later and later until the time they intended to do what they were supposed to be doing has passed 🤣.

On a serious note, yes I’m very interested to hear what happens in this sort of situation and how each feel about the other being late.

That’s the thing. I had a friend in my 20s who was often late despite her efforts, she was very apologetic about it but also completely honest that it was going to happen.

So we’d arrange to meet in bookshops or coffee shops, where I could entertain myself until she got there, & we never planned anything like shows, films or restaurant bookings that depended on her arriving on time. And that was fine.

We lost touch when she moved away, but it had nothing to do with the lateness.

@IllusionOfChoice

I think many people are just getting fed up of being expected to tolerate lateness, sorry ‘time-blindness’ and other ‘quirks’.

What irritates me is a lack of understanding that ‘NT’ people are not robots. They also feel anxious, stressed, disappointed, low, bored, overwhelmed etc. They also have bad days, times when their days are chaotic and stressful, employers and kids making demands on their time, illness, not enough hours in the day etc.

Yet they are expected to suck it all up and smile benignly whilst others are late or let them down. Because of ‘time blindness’ and a condition that has often been self-‘diagnosed’. NT people can be adversely affected by lateness and other people’s actions. They have feelings too.

EXACTLY this! ^ Very well put! 👏

I don't remember writing this post and yet I think I must have done... It's like you're in my head!!!

Honestly, I feel like we must be exactly the same.

I use timers for EVERYTHING. You know interval timers for workouts? I use those for normal things, so then there's a voice saying "pack bag" or "clean teeth" or whatever to keep me on track. It feels a bit pathetic to write that, but it does work.

@MsKarla · Today 20:13

Do people who are persistently late have friends who are also persistently late, and how do you manage that? Do you take into account their lateness and are both late? Do you out-late each other, and is there a point you've been late, they are even later but you don't know if they'll still arrive or if you've missed them completely?

😂

DH's siblings are also late for everything. And yes, they struggle to actually meet up and keep each other waiting for ages. It's chaos. God knows how any of them have managed to hold down jobs!

This is me all over and I don’t know what happens but I’m always bloody late 🤦🏼‍♀️

Do you have a job?
Do you get get there on time?

Do you go on holiday?
Do you catch planes/trains?

If so, apply the same coping/time management strategies

I was meant to meet up with an old friend the other day. It's a three hour drive and she's notoriously unreliable. The moment she said she's be busy in the morning but free by lunch I cancelled it, because I knew I'd arrive at 12/1 and she'd not be free. She messaged me later to say she'd got back home at 6pm. She misses every train because she simply doesn't think about parking, the walk to the platform. When our babies were small we'd arrange to meet at a coffee shop. After the 45 mins window my wriggly one year old would give me was up and she had only just shown up, or texted she was just leaving, it rarely worked out. She's holds a v responsible job that has a strict timetable. No idea how she manages that without being sacked..i.can only assume she makes it work there.

I’m a late person and I’ve figured out there are two drivers for this (I don’t have ADHD btw but I’m still a late person) 1) always trying to do one more thing before I leave 2) hate being early - it makes me anxious. A contributing factor is underestimating the time it will take for me to be in place at my appointments (eg forgetting to allow for parking - or the time it takes to walk from park to place - and so on). I have partially mended my ways. Mainly by building in extra time (me: it takes 1/2 hr to get to the airport, reformed me: so I’ll allow 45 mins) and being rigid with myself about leaving at the time I’ve decided I should leave. Plus a bit of self talk (me: I’ll just finish x, do y and then go, reformed me: no time for that!). It has taken a long time to improve and a lightbulb moment for me for me for those situations where I was meeting someone else was realising that I was essentially saying that my time was MORE important than everyone else’s. Which I don’t actually believe.

I really want to help 16yo DD with her time issues she's being assessed for adhd and autism and her problems with time, organisation and planning were a big part of her discussions with the cahms counsellor.
It's really interesting reading the OP's post and posts from other people who struggle with time as I can really see that DD and DH think in similar ways. I think it comes down to a real inability to estimate time.
DH will tell me it takes 5 mins to get to the station when I know for a fact it takes 12.
He always leaves at the last possible minute to get to work - often flying out the door without having had time to eat breakfast and having forgotten something important like his keys, with 30 mins to make a 40 min journey. It really stresses me out.
DD has time black holes where she goes to do something simple like brush her teeth and half a hour later she's standing in the bathroom having still not brushed her teeth, just staring out the window or something.
I feel like DH is a lost cause but I really want to help DD to manage time better. How do you teach someone to estimate time? Maybe I need to get her to actually time different tasks and make a note of it.

I am NT and I think that most people can't actually estimate time. Its why we use clocks and alarms.

@WhereAreWeNow no, she doesn't need to estimate time, she needs to know it. Clocks everywhere, a good watch. Everyone keeps thinking that not late people have some special skill of estimating time. We don't, we just pay attention to it. If it has to shout a bit louder to get your DDs attention then fine but that's literally all it is. I'm trying to teach my DD the same thing.