Confession

I’m always late

One of my most irritating personality traits is that I’m almost always 5 minutes late. I hate myself for it, especially since it makes my blood boil when others do it to me, yet it still happens far too often. I am starting to improve, but still, an appointment at 13 pm always turns out to secretly be 13:15 (unless it’s something extremely important like a job interview or catching a plane, then I’m always way too early). On of my best friends also has this problem and we both know that every time we plan to meet at our favourite hangout at 17 pm, we actually mean no earlier than 18:30.

Arriving too late simply means that I did not leave on time. I’m a real planner, and I usually calculate in my head just how long it will take me to get changed, pack my stuff and whatever, but I always forget to add in the travel time. So I usually end up being ready to leave at the time that I should be there, say at 13 pm, so I text at 13:05 “almost there” and then turn up 15 minutes later full of excuses and stories. Awful. I have to stop.

I’ve been looking into all sorts of different ways to limit the damage. Not that they all work well, as you’ve probably guessed, but still some of them are handy. I’m sharing them with you in exchange for any possible tips that you may have, and who knows maybe we’ll all manage to get there on time.

1 – Put all clocks forward by fifteen minutes. My house is like a parallel universe where time disappears because all my clocks are set ahead. The downside is that you obviously know this, so it’s probably best to ask a friend to do this sometime for you so you don’t actually know what the time is.

2 – Add more alarm clocks. I sometimes set an alarm at 12:45 that says “LIES YOU HAVE TO LEAVE NOW OTHERWISE YOU’LL BE LATE.”

3 – Agree with friends that they’ll nag you to come on time. I have plenty of friends that also always end up being late so there is not so much pressure on me. Make a deal with them that no-one is allowed to be late, and whoever is has to pay for an extra round.

4 – Do not travel with public transport. I go everywhere by bike, and on the rare occasion that I do go with a tram, I’m always late. Trams are HELL just like busses, always late and you can’t rely on them.

So. What are your tips?