Lateness
can be stressful and a career-buster. Ask a friend to hold you accountable;
don’t be scared of down-time—some tips to help you be punctual
Are you playing catch-up with your
appointments? Rushing, even running, from one meeting to the next?
You are determined you will not be late
again. Yet you repeat the same behaviour over and over.
Missing the first 10 minutes of a movie may
not be a big offence, but forever running behind schedule can wreak havoc in
relationships, leave you feeling frantic and cost you good money.
While the effect of tardiness on the bottom
line of a company is significant, adding to that cost is the ripple effect of
late-starting meetings, which affect productivity throughout the organization.
However, being punctuality challenged is not
just about missing the plane or not reaching a meeting on time, it also means monetary
penalties like late fees and a bad reputation among peers. “Many people who are
constantly late think it is not a big deal. They think they will just do it
better next time. But it is a big deal. Your professional reputation rides on
your behaviour and actions much more than you may think,” says Craig Jarrow, a
US-based time management expert and author of Time Management Ninja.
There is also the
self-inflicted stress of being a last-minute person, forever rushing to get
things done.
If these are not reasons enough to change
your habit of being fashionably late, there is a bigger reason to reckon with:
Lateness can become a career-buster. “Managers overwhelmingly said they were
less likely to promote persistently tardy employees because they’re seen as
people who lack discipline and enthusiasm,” writes time management expert Diana
DeLonzor in Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures For The Punctually Challenged.
Constantly late employees not only affect the
bottom line but are also bad for morale in general. “When an employee is
repeatedly late, other employees wonder why they’re knocking themselves out to
get in on time,” adds DeLonzor.
On an organizational level, a combination of
prevention, penalties, rewards and coaching are often key to dealing with
tardiness.
On a personal level,
if you are worried you’ll be late for the meeting again, don’t give the usual
excuses of traffic, bad weather or your alarm clock’s snooze button working
overtime. You can now blame your “planning fallacy” or the strong tendency to
chronically underestimate task completion.
Psychologists have found that chronically
late people simply underestimate how long a task will take by as much as 40%,
even if they have completed a similar task in the past within a specific time
frame.
In 1994, psychology professors Roger Buehler,
Dale Griffin and Michael Ross performed the first extensive research on the
tendency to underestimate future duration. The study, published in the Journal
Of Personality And Social Psychology, states that when undergraduates were
asked to estimate when they would finish their honours thesis, participants
underestimated their completion time by 39%. In the same study, when
participants made predictions for an everyday, non-academic task (like writing
a letter to a friend) and an academic task (like completing an essay) that
would be finished within the next week, they underestimated completion time by
46%.
“People frequently underestimate how long it
will take them to complete a task…. There is a general tendency to underestimate
past event duration, which creates biased memories of duration that could, in
turn, affect future planning,” writes psychology professor Michael M. Roy in a
2005 study, published in the Psychological Bulletin journal.
While it may seem that a chronically late
person is being purposefully tardy, research also suggests that they tend to
have difficulty with time management.
If you are a card-carrying member of the
better-late-than-never club, here are some tips to get you back on the
punctuality bandwagon:
Prepare ahead: Keep
your to-do list with all your appointments handy. If you do not know when and
where you are supposed to be, then you are destined for failure. Check in every
30 or 60 minutes on your day’s agenda. This will enable you to easily transition
from task to task throughout the day. Staying on top of your calendar and
appointments is a prerequisite for being on time.
Get realistic:
Can you make it to a 10 o’clock meeting if you are in one that will last from
9-10am? Unless you have found the secrets of time travel, don’t fix
back-to-back meetings. This will only ensure that by the end of the day you are
60-90 minutes behind schedule on everything. Not to mention your fuming
colleagues, who either had to wait for you to arrive before starting a
discussion or restart meetings 10-20 minutes after their scheduled time.
Say “no”: If
you overcommit and put in too many obligations, you will not be able to make it
to all your appointments. Simple, right? You have the same amount of time in
the day as everyone else. Do not take on obligations that you know, in advance,
you will not be able to keep.
Don’t try to be on
time, be early: Since punctuality-challenged people always
underestimate the time taken to reach a place or complete a task, start planning
to arrive at your appointments early. This will give you buffer time to tide
over any eventualities like a broken-down car or traffic jam. It will also
create more time for you.
Don’t be scared of
down-time: Contrary to popular belief, getting somewhere
early is a wonderful thing. It helps you boost your productivity by letting you
fit in essential mini tasks, like checking mail, reading, returning phone calls
in the precious minutes “in-between” everyday events.
Keep a time buddy:
Ask a friend, colleague or spouse to hold you accountable for not showing up on
time. There can be a reward for being punctual and a serious penalty for being
tardy. We tend to form habits faster when we have an accountability partner.
Don’t underestimate lateness. Whether it is
damaged relationships, getting fired from your job, late fees, or a tarnished
reputation, being late will have negative consequences, sooner than you think.
While it may take a change of perspective for you to make punctuality a regular
part of your routine, with time and patience you can start staying ahead of
time rather than being a last-minute person.
Source | Mint – The Wall Street Journal | 17 August 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment