12 Strategies On How To Be Punctual

I was brought up to believe that being on time (e.g. for an appointment or meeting) was important, but punctuality is nothing more than a cultural construct.

How do we know this?

Because different cultures view time and punctuality very differently. For example:

• In Germany, time is important and being late is often recognized as having an actual cost.
• In Japan, even if you arrive one minute after the appointed time, you are still considered late – and rude.
• In many north African countries, such as Morocco or Tunisia, it’s OK to be late by as much as an hour, and in some cases, even an entire day.

It appears that the degree of industrialization appears to correlate closely to standards of punctuality – the more industrialized a country is, the more likely it is that being on time is expected of you.

This would mean that in countries where the lifestyle is more rural, time is of less importance. In fact, if you are a farmer, it is more relevant that you adapt to the changing seasons and weather than starting work at exactly the same time each day.

In the USA, estimates shows that about 20% (which is one in five) people are chronically late, so it’s obviously a significant problem for a lot of people.

However, while I have travelled to a number of countries across different continents, I have only lived in countries where punctuality is theoretically expected, so in this article I’m going to look at a few tips on how to maximize your chances of being on time.

I’m going to start, though, with some personal experiences and anecdotes, to help you see where I’m coming from.

Personal Experiences

For almost 20 years, I worked for a major British company, a household name in its field, and meetings were a way of life there.

Some people (and I include myself in this) were almost like professional meeting attenders.

Some of the problems I encountered in this meeting-run system included:

• Scheduling back-to-back meetings, often in offices at opposite ends of the building. This inevitably meant you either had to leave one meeting early or arrive at the next one late.
• There was meant to be a rule that a meeting’s start would not be delayed because of the tardiness of a minority, but that rule, when it was followed, was useless if the majority of people were late (which happened frequently) or if the person who had called the meeting, and would be running it, was late.
• Time-keeping was terrible during the meeting, which is why the vast majority overran, or had to be ended abruptly because somebody else had booked that room for their own meeting.
• A lack of a published agenda led to a lack of focus. I attended many meetings where the first half of the allotted time was spent discussing what the meeting was about – which could easily have been addressed up front by sending out an agenda.
• People didn’t know why they had been invited, which again wasted time on the occasions when they questioned their presence. Again, this should be dealt with in advance.

Not all of these issues are about turning up on time, but they are all related to the way the company culture viewed the use of time, and the cost of that time.

My late wife was one of those who did not seem to worry about being on time or not – we were even late for our own wedding by at least 30 minutes. (Fortunately, this is a small town so being late didn’t cause any problems.)

Now, she was of mixed race – half Caucasian and half African America, I believe, and in the USA, where I live as I write this, there is even a term called “black people time”, which may elsewhere be be known as being fashionably late.

With my British upbringing, it caused me considerable anxiety.

And I largely put that down to my father – he was born in Canada and spent a large part of his life there before settling in England.

When my mum and dad were getting ready to go to work in the morning, my dad would be sat outside in the car, revving the engine, while my mum dashed around trying to finish whatever it was she needed to do.

It annoyed the hell out of her, and this happened almost every single day.

There were probably lessons both of them could have learned from this, but I think that is partly where I get my sense of time from – well, that, and I think being on time is just a matter of common courtesy.

As for the term “fashionably late”, when somebody says that about themselves, what I hear is that they are bragging about something that is nothing to be proud of.

So, yes, I do consider being late rude, largely because it is disrespectful to others. It sends the message that your time is more valuable than theirs, and yet we all only have the same 24 hours a day to do what we need to do.

One problem today seems to me to be that people do not value time – they waste it on frivolous activities, they don’t appreciate the time that goes into making something, and in many cases, they certainly don’t value their own time, never mind anybody else’s.

And on that point, there was a couple, many years ago, who were going on a coach tour, and they had to be at their local bus station by a certain time because that was when the coach was due to pick them up.

As it turned out, the coach was late by about 15 minutes.

However, this particular couple turned up ten minutes late themselves – and then started complaining about the fact that the coach wasn’t there yet.

It never apparently occurred to them that if the coach had been there on time, they would have missed it and had their vacation ruined.

OK, rant over – let’s get started with the punctuality tips.

Acceptance

As with so many problems, the first step is to acknowledge that you have a problem being on time, and that you want to eliminate that problem.

Once you are aware that this is a systemic problem for you, you can begin to take steps to ensure you are punctual.

Understand The Why

It’s not enough simply to say that you will do your best to be on time in future – you need to know why it’s important to you.

Reasons (which you should write down, because that will increase the chances of your taking this endeavour seriously) include:

• Reduced stress, because being late (or the knowledge that you will be late) can cause you (and maybe others if they think they’ve been stood up) anxiety.
• Make working relationships easier. If your colleagues feel like they are having to pick up the slack because you are frequently late, they will start to resent you.
• It demonstrates reliability – if you say you will do something (by a certain time), and you do, then it shows people can trust your word. (This may be a crucial factor in whether you get promoted or not.)

Change Your Mindset

Some people mistakenly believe that the later you turn up, the more important you are.

This is, of course, patently not true – it might show you are busier, or have come from another meeting, but that’s not the same as important.

If this is how you currently think, then it’s time to change your mindset to appreciate what being early says about you:

• You’re organized and prepared.
• You value other people’s time.
• You will keep your word.

Track Your Time

It seems that people are not particularly good at estimating how long a task will take.

This is often because they underestimate the impact of the unknown and factors they cannot control. However, just because you cannot control those external factors does not mean you shouldn’t try to include some contingency in your plans.

Another reason that I experienced many times in the job I mentioned above is staff being asked to estimate how long a task or project would take. They would often provide, based on their own knowledge of previous such activities, a reasonably accurate estimate – but there would be management pressure to reduce that estimate, for no other reason than the figure “seemed too high”.

So, one way to be better at being on time is to track how long tasks and activities actually take you – including, for example, how long it takes to get ready in the morning, your travelling time to work, or how long a weekly status report really takes to write.

The more information you have about actual time, the better you will be able to estimate similar activities in the future.

Use A Timer

Setting a timer (e.g. a kitchen timer, or an app on your phone) before you begin an activity helps in two ways:

1. The ticking sound reminds you that you are, literally, on the clock.
2. When it rings, you know you need to end that activity now. And if you’re nowhere near finished, then it tells you that you underestimated how long that activity would take so you can adjust it for the next time.

Preparation

How many times have you been late because you were about to leave on time, but then realized you didn’t have a necessary item (e.g. car keys, wallet, purse, overcoat, briefcase, glasses, phone)?

If you allocate time to do the necessary preparation, this will cease to be an issue.

This is one reason why some successful people (e.g. Steve Jobs) dress the same way each day – it’s efficient. (They may also do so for personal branding reasons, of course.)

Personally, when I had an office job, I would lay out the next morning’s clothes in readiness, just to save time, and I would usually leave my briefcase by the front door, having made sure it contained everything I needed.

It’s also worth having a place for each item, such as a hook by the door for your keys, a closet for your coat, a spot for your briefcase. When everything is in its rightful place, you don’t need to waste time working out where it is.

In addition, when you always collect the items you need from the same place each day, it becomes a habit, which means it’s one less thing to think about.

And if you need to go somewhere new, make sure you find out, in advance, how to get there, whether that’s by road or train or whatever.

Again, there is no excuse not to do this these days, with GPS devices and map software being so readily available. (I remember the days when you had to use actual, printed maps, and the introduction of AutoRoute software, which is now defunct, in the 1980s was a real innovation.)

I accept that if you have children, then getting them ready in the morning (e.g. for school) can appear chaotic and unpredictable, but there’s still no reason not to try to plan ahead, and stick to a routine.

Contingency

I’ve already touched on this, but I have always felt it better to allow too much time and too little – because you never know what might happen.

Traffic can be better or worse than normal, a phone call might last longer than you expected, or you may find a previous appointment runs longer than you planned for.

And yes, there are some things you simply cannot plan for, and those are, of course, understandable, but for things that you do every day, it’s not too difficult to allow an adequate cushion.

Use Reminders Intelligently

If you have a meeting at 10:00am in another office or building, it makes no sense for your only reminder to ring at 10:00am – because you won’t get there in time.

I prefer to use a series of reminders – for example, one to let me know that it’s time to start preparing, and one to let me know it’s time to leave.

In a way, the same goes for your alarm clock in the morning – set it for a time when you need to get up, and then get up immediately.

If you really prefer to come to gradually, then set your alarm for earlier so you have time to hit your snooze button a few times – although it’s still better to get up as soon as your alarm goes off.

Always Leave On Time

Once you know at what time you need to leave (e.g. your home, office) to get somewhere for an appointment, then make sure you leave at that time.

You should already have included contingency within your travelling time, but it’s not intended to be used for activities you personally can choose to do or not – it’s for the unforeseen elements that are out of your control.

This means:

• Don’t try to squeeze in one more task from your To-Do list. Even if you can do it, it may make you late, or you may not do justice to that task because it really warrants more time being spent on it.
• Don’t check emails one minute before you need to leave, because you may get sucked into trying to dash off a quick response or checking out links on the Internet.
• Tell visitors or callers that you need to leave and that you will contact them later (or tell them when they can get hold of you).
• If you notice some job that needs doing, however small it may seem, make a note to do it later.

Prioritise Your To-Do List

There are many reasons why we list things we need to do that shouldn’t be there, including:

• An inability to separate the truly important from the less important. (This is a topic I cover in this article.)
• You feel unable to say “no” to a request, maybe because you like to be helpful whenever you can, or maybe because your boss asked you to do it and you feel like you cannot refuse them.

The problem is, having too much on your list can not only stress you out, but also mean you end up being late for appointments because you’re trying to get something done that shouldn’t even be on the list in the first place.

And while it’s nice to appear helpful, is it really helping anybody if you are unable to fulfil that obligation because you’ve overloaded your To-Do list.

Use Waiting Time Productively

If you say you don’t like being early because it’s a waste of your own time, have you considered you can use those minutes productively?

Maybe you can catch up on a quick phone call, read a report, check your email, or any other number of activities.

For me, this is an extension of a habit I’ve practised for years – if I’m going somewhere and I anticipate I may have to wait a while (e.g. the doctor, the dentist, the bank, the airport), I take a book with me.

These days, this is super-easy given the popularity and availability of digital books (e.g. Kindle), but when I started doing this, it was physical books only.

With services / apps such as 12min, you can read an entire book that has been summarized for you in just a few minutes – so you have no excuse to waste those few minutes before a meeting or appointment.

Alternatively, you can finally read those articles you’ve bookmarked.

Technology

You should make use of the technology that is available to you these days, via software on your computer and phones / tablets.

For example, you could be using a:

1. Calendar. (I use Google Calendar.)
2. Notes. (I use Evernote.)
3. Task Manager. (I use Todoist.)

And ideally, these apps should sync automatically across different platforms, so that an appointment or note or task you create on your phone is available almost immediately on your desktop or laptop, and vice versa.

Also, make sure that all of the devices you use are on the same time zone setting. This may be important with daylight saving time programs, where some devices update automatically (most do these days, of course) and some don’t.

Conclusion

The good news is that all or most of the above tips work and are available to most people. They’re simple a list of good habits that are worth developing and that should replace bad habits. (This is a topic I cover in my Brain Training For Success course, starting in Lesson 3.2.)

The bad news is that people who are frequently late often exhibit other problems too, including:

• ADD-like behaviours (e.g. problems maintaining attention, restlessness trouble concentrating).
• Lack of self-control (e.g. eating disorders, gambling, impulse buying) and an increased chance of substance abuse.
• Mental health issues (e.g. anxiety).
• Procrastination.
• Thrill-seeking activities.

Whether any of these affect you or not, it is at least worth making punctuality a habit.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. 12min
2. Note Taking Software
3. Task Manager Software