"I hit the snooze button one too many times." "I got distracted." "I just don't want to be there."
There are a lot of reasons we end up running late to work or to gatherings with friends and family, but if you're not careful, tardiness can become a habit.
So, how do we fight back and make punctuality a priority?
Entrepreneur.com has a few ideas:
- Remind yourself why it's important to be punctual.
- Figure out why you're running late.
- Start tracking how long it takes to accomplish tasks.
- Overestimate how much time it takes to complete those tasks.
- Consider how long transition activities take, like walking to the car or driving to the scheduled lunch meeting.
- Plan the night before.
- Set your watch a few minutes later than the actual time.
- Use reminders and notifications.
- Don't spread yourself too thin.
- Don't mistake arrival time with start time. For example, if work starts at 9 a.m., don't arrive at 9, but a few minutes prior.
- Resist the urge to add "one more thing."
- Prioritize your sleep.
Local life coach Timothy September with The World Needs You Now says attitude can play a big role in whether or not someone arrives on time.
“If you replace ‘I have to’ with ‘I get to’, then it becomes a lot different, like ‘I get to go to this place that is able to pay me to make money, I get to enjoy being around my co-workers, I get to use the skills that I’ve trained'," he said.
September adds that we can set ourselves up for failure from the moment we wake up by hitting the snooze alarm too many times. He says it's important to resist the urge to press that button.
“Something as simple as counting down from 5 to 1, going '5, 4, 3, 2, 1' and then getting up like a rocket, sometimes that helps you where you just really motivate yourself," said September. “You only have a seven second window to make a decision and act behind that."
Click HERE for more ways to help fight tardiness.
