Never Be Late Again: Tips for Being Punctual

While everyone is occasionally late, some of us couldn’t be on time if our lives depended on it. You can’t be consistently on time if it’s not a priority. You must first decide to be punctual before you can change. Being on time reduces stress, builds trust, and shows respect for others. You’ll also gain a feeling of self-control.

Regain control of your time with these tips:

1.      Get up on time. When your first act of the day is procrastination, it’s going to be harder to be on time for anything else. When the alarm goes off, stretch, brush off the cobwebs and get up. One solution is to place your alarm clock on the other side of the room. Just remember to fight the urge to climb back in bed. You can reward yourself by giving yourself a nap or a deep relaxation session later in the day.

2.      Have extra time built into your schedule. If your son’s baseball practice ends at 7:00, avoid agreeing to meet a friend for dinner at 7:30 on the other side of town. What if traffic is heavier than expected or baseball practice runs late? In general: Assume the worst and schedule your time accordingly.

3.        Plan your day the night before. If you spend a little of your leisure time in the evening to plan the next day, you won’t spend time in the morning trying to make decisions. Have an evening routine that includes preparing for tomorrow. See yourself executing your plan on time and feel good about being on time.

4.        Part of being on time consists of stopping on time. If you don’t end your current activity in time, you’re guaranteed to be late for later activities. Avoid short-term thinking. This takes discipline. One way to condition yourself is to regularly consider the consequences of lingering on your current activity for too long. Think how your decision will affect the remainder of your day.

5.       Being Timely is being respectful. When someone has to wait for you, you’re implicitly announcing that you don’t respect their time. You’d rather be late and keep them waiting than be on time. Others resent this lack of respect. Use this factor to your advantage as you intend to be respectful and gain the respect of others by making timeliness your priority.

6.        Record your appointments in one place. If you have appointments listed in your phone, on scraps of papers, and on your desk calendar, your schedule is a disaster waiting to happen. Choose one place to schedule all of your obligations.

7.         Know where you’re going. You might know that your destination is about a block north of the grocery store near your old neighborhood, but that’s not good enough. Pull up the location on your phone or computer before you need to leave. Know exactly where you’re going, how to get there and how long it will take.

8.         Avoid getting ready last. Rather than focus on social media until the last possible moment and then get ready to leave, get ready first. Any leftover time can then be spent reading the latest posts. You can’t be positive how long it will take to get ready. But you can put down your phone and walk out the door whenever you need to.

9.           Use alarms. Set an alarm for 7:15 if you must leave the house by 7:30. Give yourself enough warning that you can get out the door on time.

10.          Keep at least a half-tank of gas in your car. How many times have you barely squeaked out of the house on time, only to realize that you don’t have enough gas for the trip? Keep enough gas in your car for any situation. Get gas before you need it.

You can be on time! Make the decision and follow these simple tactics. A few new habits will ensure that being late is a thing of the past. Get your day started on the right foot by getting out of bed on time. Be realistic with your schedule and respect others. Use alarms to your advantage. You can be known for your punctuality if you so choose. You will feel awesome as a time warrior. Make being on time for everything a priority for the next week and start to feel a new power in you. Let me know how it goes in the comments below.

 Joe Mitchell, is a High Performance Coach, who has logged over 35 years of in-depth study of personal and spiritual development. In his studies, he has done hundreds of self development courses, spiritual retreats and health related workshops. He is a certified yoga teacher, meditation teacher, EFT Practitioner, NLP Practitioner and a graduate of three coaching academies. He was also a member of a religious order for 5 years. In 2016, after a 20 year career as a criminal and personal injury attorney, he decided to turn his heart's passion into a career as a Success Coach, Motivational Speaker and Trainer. For information on Joe’s programs, high performance videos and  to apply for a Free High Performance Session click the following link http://www.activateyourgreatness.com/free-session