I am the late Leah Hardy. I am always, invariably late. And far from thinking
it’s some cute and quirky character trait, I hate it. It’s horrible,
stressful and upsetting. It eats me up with guilt and makes my friends and
family extremely cross with me. I’ve been late all my life. I’ve been late
for school, late for university lectures, late for work, late for parties,
late for weddings . . . late for every bloody thing. I’ve missed planes,
parties and even vital job interviews.
Most people loathe latecomers. And not just because latecomers tread on their
toes at the theatre or keep them waiting in pubs. It’s because they think
latecomers are arrogant, power-tripping or simply disrespectful of other
people’s time. British people are more intolerant of lateness than any other
nation. A study by the delivery company Parceline Chronopost International
indicated that the Japanese are the most forbearing, waiting up to 30
minutes with a smile. Only 8 per cent of Japanese think that you should
never be late, compared with the British, of whom 34 per cent said any
lateness is inexcusable. But we late people are not being arrogant — we are
in hell. We are constantly stressed, rushed and miserable. Icy hands clutch
at our innards as time ticks by and we realise that we are getting later and
later.
Over the years, I’ve organised my life around my lateness. I often refuse
invitations for events that have a specific start time as I fear letting
people down. When I arrange to meet friends, I try to meet three friends,
rather than just one, because then they have each other to talk to until I
get there. If I arrive late at the theatre, I go and have a drink until the
interval. I work freelance from home so I don’t have to start by a specific
time. I moved house to be one minute from my son’s school gates. I even
insisted on getting married in the same place I was staying as, otherwise,
I’d have been late for that, too.
So why do I get myself in all this trouble? Why don’t I just pull myself
together? After all, how hard can it be to just show up on time?
According to Diana DeLonzor, a time-management consultant and the author of Never
Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged (Post Madison,
£7.23), it can be difficult. “Telling a late person just to be on time is a
little like telling a dieter to simply stop eating so much,” she says.
“Though it may seem a simple matter of people being rude, it’s far more
complex. It really is more than a matter of poor time-management. It tends
to be a lifelong pattern. It’s something that goes across activities; most
late people are late for everything.”
I e-mail DeLonzor at her office in San Francisco and she agrees to help me. By
the time I call her a few days later (at the second attempt; the first time
I forgot until it was too late) I’m ready to throw myself on her mercy.
“Lifelong habits are hard to break,” she says, in her brisk, reassuring
tones. “But it can be done.”
DeLonzor is living proof. She was terminally late for most of her life. It
caused havoc in her job as a sales manager and chaos in her marriage. Like
me, she offended friends, missed flights, and arrived late for business
gatherings.
“It was a running joke but people also got angry,” she recalls. “Every
encounter began with an apology or a story about why I was late. People
always saw me as a bit of a flake.” I immediately experience a surge of
sisterly feeling.
“Contrary to popular belief, it’s really not about being selfish or believing
their time is less important than yours,” DeLonzor says. “These are people
who are late for the gym, job interviews, even holidays. It’s about their
inability to control their own time.”
DeLonzor, who studied lateness with the help of psychologists at San Francisco
State University, has found that it is associated with certain personality
traits. Among other things, the team found that punctuality-challenged
people often share common characteristics, including anxiety, being messy
and easily distracted, perfectionist habits, low levels of self-control or a
penchant for thrill-seeking. I soon recognise myself as having other
typically late traits such as procrastination and liking to fill every
minute with activity. I am also slightly shy, and find social gatherings
rather intimidating so I unconsciously put off the moment of arrival. I
also, I discover, have a totally unrealistic idea of what I can accomplish
in any given time.
Studies suggest that habitually late people actually perceive time differently
from other people. At Cleveland State University, stop-watch-wielding
researchers asked chronically late people how much time had passed, and were
surprised by how much they underestimated time. DeLonzor replicated the
research and found that early people, asked to read for 90 seconds,
consistently read for less time, while late people carried on for minutes at
a time. “People who are late tend to misjudge the time needed to accomplish
even those things they’ve done hundreds of times, like getting dressed for
work,” says DeLonzor. This is due to what she calls magical thinking —
eternal optimism even in the presence of contradictory evidence. “It’s the
unshakable ability to believe you can drive the ten miles to work in seven
minutes flat.”
Research by the Medical College of Wisconsin, published in the journal Nature
Neuro-science, suggests that certain areas of the brain are critical for
time-perception. Poor time-perception, lateness, and impulsiveness are
symptoms of certain conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), and these are associated with low levels of dopamine. It is
possible, the researchers suggest, that late people may have mild brain
abnormalities that are similar to those in ADHD.
Whatever the reasons for lateness, DeLonzor is convinced that, with the right
amount of will and effort, it will be possible for me, and those like me, to
change their ways. She instructs me to relearn how to tell the time: to work
out how long things really take, and to base my schedules on the results.
More importantly, I should never plan to be on time, filling every second
until it is precisely the time to leave.
Ironically, most late people have a strong aversion to waiting. It makes them
feel at a loss. In future, I must learn to love being early. If I’m due to
start work at 9am and the drive to work takes 20 minutes, at 22 minutes to
9, the late person, instead of leaving the house, will continue reading the
paper or doing the washing up until exactly 8.40am. This is a recipe for
lateness, something that DeLonzor calls “deadlining”. Instead, I must plan
to be 15 minutes early, and take a book or a paper so, if by a miracle I am
early, I can treat it as luxury time, to treat myself to a chapter of a
novel or a cup of coffee.
I should also, Boy Scout-style, be prepared. I should sort out my clothes the
night before, put vital documents in my bag, keep my keys in the same place
so I don’t spent ten minutes hunting for them. And lastly, says DeLonzor, I
should banish my belief that it is pointless to do anything before I
absolutely have to. Last-minute crisises constantly frustrate my attempts to
be early, like the time I was late to a party because I ran out of petrol on
the way.
“Put petrol in the car before the tank is empty,” exhorts DeLonzor. “Go to the
cash-point while you still have money in your purse. Try to do three things
early every day.”
I decide to put it all into action. I am due to visit a girlfriend’s new flat
for dinner. I am supposed to arrive by 7pm, so aim to arrive at 6.45pm. The
night before I pick out the dress I want to wear and ensure that it’s clean
and ready to wear (instead of finding myself hopping up and down by the
tumble drier at 6.30pm). During the day, I put petrol in the car. I make
sure I have money. I ask my husband to come home 15 minutes early so I have
time to disentangle myself from the kids, brush my hair and apply lipstick
before leaving the house.
Things go remarkably smoothly — I’m early!
But I fall at the last hurdle. Just as I am about to swan out of the door, I
hear the bleep of the answerphone. Before I know it, I’m in my office,
checking my messages and e-mails. Realising that I am “deadlining” and run
for the door. The journey (for which I have allowed an hour instead of my
normal 20 minutes) takes exactly an hour. And, do you know what, I was on
time. And if I hadn’t succumbed to the siren lure of the answerphone, I
might even have been early. It is a revelation.
The next day I arrange to meet a friend in the park café with our children. I
pick out their clothes the night before, instead of loafing in our pyjamas
until ten minutes before we need to leave, I get us all washed and dressed
an hour early. I have the paraphernalia of small kids — nappies, drinks,
bananas — safely stowed under the pushchair. I leave 20 minutes early, which
makes me feel deeply uneasy, even guilty that I’m not filling my time
properly. We do arrive early, and I adore the feeling of smug satisfaction
when I realise I have time for a coffee before my friend arrives. It is
fabulously relaxing not to be sweating, flustered, and muttering apologies.
My friend arrives on time, and is so startled to see me sitting there she
assumes she is late and apologises, which makes us laugh.
I’m not saying my late days are over — far from it. But, thanks to DeLonzor,
for the first time I am aware of some of the things that have always
contributed to my lateness. My fear of not filling my time, my
procrastination, and my reliance on deadlines have all been disastrous for
my timekeeping. I am also aware that, for me, not being late will involve
far more effort than for many others.
But for the sake of my sanity, and that of my friends and family, I just have
to keep trying.
Never be late again
Stop doing everything at the last minute. Buy petrol before the tank is empty.
Don’t start blow-drying your hair two minutes before you have to leave the
house. Pay bills on the day you get them. Don’t plan to be on time, plan
to be 15 minutes early. Take a book or some work with you to fill any
waiting time. Make a daily plan, with a written schedule of your
activities with estimates for start and end times. This helps you to see
what you really have time for. The lateness guru Diana DeLonzor says that
most people underestimate how long it takes to complete tasks by about 30
per cent. Create individual mantras, such as: “It won’t get any easier in
five minutes,” instead of hitting the snooze alarm for the fifth time. Get
more tips and advice from Diana DeLonzor at www.neverbelateagain.com.
