Late Again

I once heard someone say “When it comes to time, a women getting ready to leave is equivalent to a man saying when he’s coming home.”

In my life, this couldn’t be more true. I suck at being on time, especially when it comes to family stuff and getting home. Everyone I’ve ever worked with sucked at being on time. I’ve had so many conversations with myself or colleagues having one foot out the door knowing they should leave NOW but unable to resist work talk. Even more difficult is spending precious time with friends and wanting to squeeze just a few minutes out of the day to hangout with them just to let others around you down later. (see: choosing to have that second beer at Happy Hour instead of heading home)

Try this exercise, close your eyes and visually levitate over a situation in your mind, clearly understanding how each person feels in their own way (think: scene from Scrooge or overhead view of a RPG game). This is an exercise I try often and rarely achieve success. When you do, it can be powerful. Think about what a pain in the ass it is for your wife, friend or colleague when you are 45 minutes late, regardless of why you are. Use the overhead visualization technique to see that scene in your mind.

When it comes to time expectations, do these things:

1. Choose short term disappointment over long term trust damage.
Get used to over estimating the time it will take to do something or be somewhere. This is as true for your wife expecting you home for dinner as it is estimating delivery of a new software feature. Estimating high will yield short term disappointment but it’s worth it to not lose long term trust.

2. Schedules Matter
In my marriage, I have assumed synchronicity on schedules so many times and been wrong that’s it’s embarrasing. Schedules need to be taken seriously, not just treated as a minor annoyance. Big mistakes can be made by scheduling mishaps.

3. Reiterate. Reiterate. Retrospect.
As soon as you feel like you have your system dialed in it’s probably time to retrospecct on schedules. Never assume you have this figured out because life changes quickly which changes expectations surrounding this.

4. Always Txt
I have gotten in countless arguments trying to defend my guilt riden tardiness when a simple txt would have sufficed. Instead of texting “Running an hour late, sorry.” which would take 3 seconds, I skip that and send a mental message to my spouse that I am not thinking at all about her or the family, when in fact I’m stressed about running late. (I did this tonight which prompted this blog post.)

If you have a career or interest that involves attending after-work events, and you have a wife, family, friends, etc in which you have set expectations, don’t mess that up.

Good Luck. Being on time for meetings and presentations is one thing, being on time for your family and friends requires a different type of discipline.