Inside the Mind of a Timebender Why Im Always Late

i’m

scared of the clock

i’ve got to finish in exactly 18 minutes

what’s the problem just measure how long

it takes

and finish when you have to but that’s

what i say to myself

every saturday morning when i go to my

zumba class

i need to leave at 9 15 every week

i seem to leave about 5 or 10 minutes

later than i have to

i get there before the class arrives so

i imagine i’m on time

until one week the teacher said

here’s grace we can start now and i

realized

i’m always late they always wait for me

how embarrassing i hate being late

why is it so hard to be on time

so i decided to look it up you can find

anything on the internet

and i found a piece of research by a

company called yougov

that said twenty percent of people are

late for work

at least once a week so i’m not alone

but when i looked for a book on the

subject i was amazed

i found sixty

books on time management but they all

seem to be written by people

who had no problem with punctuality

the advice was measure how long things

take

and leave home earlier they didn’t seem

to understand my problem

i found seven thousand books on

procrastination

but i couldn’t find seven on lateness

what’s the difference procrastination

is about starting and lateness is about

finishing

but there’s more to it than that

procrastination impacts your own life

it stops you doing what you want to do

lateness impacts the lives of the people

who wait for you

i did find one book it was called never

be late again

written by a psychologist who understood

because

she had the problem she said lateness is

a bit like

overeating but instead of eating one

more chocolate

you just squeeze in one more task before

you have to leave home

she divided late people into different

categories but when it came to

explaining how to

never be late again it seemed to boil

down to

measure how long everything takes and

leave home earlier

that’s a bit like telling an overweight

person

to eat less it’s not that easy

so i decided to do my own research it

was fairly easy to find my subjects

they’re the people who arrive just on

time or a little bit late for events

and i discovered that we have a

different

attitude to time a different experience

of time

every minute isn’t the same length for

us we can speed up

or slow down in fact we get

deeply engrossed in what we’re doing and

lose all track of time

i call it time bending

we can vary the speed at which we work

we can do amazing things before a tight

deadline

we actually enjoy the adrenaline buzz it

makes us feel alive

we love tight deadlines but take away

the deadline

and we can slow right down and spend all

morning watching tv in our pajamas

but it’s not all bad we also have some

positive characteristics as well as as

well as being late

we don’t mind taking on a task even if

time is short

and we uh we don’t mind being

interrupted so we’re flexible

we will drop what we’re doing if you

need our help so we’re responsive

and we don’t mind too much of our plans

get changed

so we’re adaptable

but why are we late i’d like to share

with you

the seven strange secrets in the

subconscious mind

of a time bender number one

we are hesitant to finish things

we we don’t like to close anything down

until we

really have to we seem to get stuck in

what we’re doing and not want to move on

number two we don’t like to be

early it’s not logical

but any time vendor will tell you that

we can aim to be on time

but not before time we might have time

in hand

we might think we can be early but then

just before we leave home

we squeeze in one more task just got

time to empty the dishwasher

number three we’re not good at measuring

time

because time will speed up and slow down

for us

we’re really not sure how long anything

takes us

how long does it take to empty the

dishwasher

strange secret number four

deadlines are really important to us but

they must be real

we can’t make a deadline up we if we

plug a deadline from the air it doesn’t

give us the adrenaline buzz we need to

get moving

strain secret number five we believe we

can

teleport from one task to another

without any preparation time

if we need to leave the house at eight

o’clock

we actually think we can stop what we’re

doing eight o’clock and instantly be

ready to leave

even if we live on the 10th floor we

somehow think we can just jump in our

car and drive

off number six

we are total optimists we somehow think

that the lights will always be green the

roads will be empty

and we’ll find the perfect parking space

we don’t leave enough time for things to

go wrong on the journey

and number seven and this may be the

strangest secret of all

we do everything back to front

stephen covey this famous time

management guru

told the world that highly effective

people start with the important and the

urgent

well we turn this on its head we start

with the non-urgent and the unimportant

and we don’t get round to the important

stuff until that

deadline clock is ticking and then

we can focus really well and get things

done just in time

so how does this make me late for zumba

i need to leave home at 9 15 for a 9 30

class

i get up at 7 30 have a shower go and

make tea

empty the dishwasher water the plants

start looking at social media

get absorbed in emails vaguely aware

it’s eight something

then all of a sudden oh no it’s

nine quickly rush to pull on my sports

gear quickly do my face and my hair

and check the time it’s 9 15 i’m on time

then i go and find my sports shoes

get a bottle of water from the fridge

put on my jacket

make sure i’ve got my phone check i’ve

got my keys

just locking the door suddenly realized

i’ve forgotten to have any breakfast

rush in time to grab a cereal bar

and drive off praying the lights will be

green

but hang on a minute i’m not always like

this

my life isn’t completely out of control

i can be on time when it matters

so i started to think about this and

realized that

i do have some control over my time

keeping

so i wrote a list and i called it

my secret scale of acceptable lateness

and i realized that i can be early for

a flight weddings and funerals

job interviews i really should be early

for school college

work client meetings

and really like to be on time for my

exercise class

my choir rehearsal my hairdressing

appointments

i don’t really need to be on time

for meeting friends family parties

and i can always be late for dinner

parties and

music gigs with a support band and

cinema with adverts

so what’s going on here what’s the

pattern

well i saw that i can always be on time

when there’s a real external deadline

with consequences

if i’m late for check-in i don’t get the

flight

if i’m late for a job interview i don’t

get the job

but i can be late

when there’s no real deadline and

no real consequences i’m late for social

occasions

i’m late for my family and my friends

and i had never realized this before

but the real light bulb moment was when

i realized

that means they see me as always late

i say i can be on time when it matters

and i’m late for the people who matter

to me the most

so i started to think about the people

who have to wait for me

because i have to admit i don’t spend

much time thinking about them when i’m

rushing through the lights trying to get

there on time

and i realized that although they don’t

tell me what they think

they’re too nice they do tell each other

what they think

and they do share their opinions on the

internet

so i did learn a few home truths that

way

but i also discovered that as well as

time benders who can be late

at the other end of the spectrum there

are people who are really

anxious about being early

they are so horrified at the idea of

being late

that they build in loads of extra time

for their journey and they can be 20 to

30 minutes early

now they hate lateness more than anybody

and they wait for us for longer than

anyone else

so we drive them really mad i call them

the time

keepers now a time keeper and a time

bender are unlikely to be really good

friends

but we all know opposites attract so the

chances are

they’ll end up as a couple

now i feel bad about this and i’d like

to do something to help

so on behalf of us time benders i’d like

to answer the question

that you always have how can you get a

time vendor

to be on time because my book isn’t just

about what makes us late

it’s also about how we can be on time

so and i discovered that actually the

thing that you do

to try and get us to be on time has the

opposite effect

and you all know what it is you lie

about the start time

you tell us we’ve got to be there 10

minutes or even 30 minutes earlier

than we really have to now this will

work the first time it’ll work the first

few times

but once we realize what you’re doing

we’re going to stop believing in

believing you and we’re going to start

factoring this in

so in the long term it’ll make us later

what you have to do and i really don’t

want to tell you this

you have to make that deadline real

if you say you’re leaving at eight

o’clock and we’re not ready

you have to leave if you say dinner’s at

seven

and we’re not ready you have to start

we’re going to be very upset that you

haven’t waited for us

but next time we’ll take that deadline

seriously

and as well as more ideas for partners

i’ve also got ways that we time vendors

can get ourselves to be on time

because once we understand what makes us

late we can find ways to

outwit our subconscious minds

so for example if we know we don’t like

being early

can we build in a pre-event activity

so if you’re going to the theater can

you meet your friends for a drink

beforehand

maybe you can offer somebody a lift you

might be a little bit late for them

but you won’t miss the main event we

know we don’t like finishing things well

perhaps we could put off going to bed by

getting our clothes

and our bag ready for the next morning

we can’t change our innate personality

but we can change our behavior

but before i finish i’d like to just

take a step back

and look at the bigger picture because

time management is a concept created

over a hundred years ago in the

manufacturing belt of america

where efficiency and productivity were

the keys to competitive advantage

when the world is predictable efficiency

is what you need

but for resilience you need to be

prepared

for change when the world is

unpredictable

flexibility is what you need

when your customers needs are changing

responsiveness

is what you need and when the future is

not the same as the past

adaptability is what you need

so maybe a century later

it’s time for a new look at lateness

maybe the resilient companies best place

to

face the future are those where most of

the employees

are just a few minutes late for work