1. Treasure time – yours and everyone else’s
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TAKE 4 Steps To Arrive On Time, Every Time
September 15, 2024
By Joel Morgan
Hi! I’m Joel Morgan. Welcome to Time Diamonds!
This is a time that a significant portion of the planet recognizes the start of a new year. And many of us like to make “new year’s resolutions”, life changes we plan to make in the new year. To follow along with that concept, for the next few weeks our conversations on Time Diamonds will focus on “new day’s resolutions”, life changes that we can make starting with each new day!
Our first “new day’s resolution” conversation for the new year, then, focuses on punctuality, the habit of arriving on time, every time. I chose this conversation first because I spent the first 30 years of my life habitually arriving late! I know that many of us across the world struggle with the problem of tardiness, but I feel pretty confident that I was the world’s worst!
After years of trying numerous different failing strategies (who else out there has tried the “set my clock forward 10 minutes” trick?), I finally just sort of stumbled into the solution. No light-bulb moments here. I think the solution was just so painfully obvious and easy that I just repeatedly overlooked it.
I was so excited about how well this strategy worked for me that, of course, I wanted to share it with everyone else struggling with the same problem. I considered writing a book on the subject. But when I sat down to start outlining that book, I realized that the concept is so simple that I couldn’t fill a chapter, much less an entire book!
So, here, then, are my “TAKE” 4 steps to arriving on time every time:
2. A pre-agreed time is a commitment
3. Know and do ONLY the truly necessary pre-departure steps
4. Estimate time pessimistically
Now, let’s dig into what these steps mean.
1. Treasure time – yours and everyone else’s
The first step to arriving on time every time is simply seeing time as treasure. And that means not only your time, but everyone else’s time, too. And more to the point for today’s conversation, the time of anyone to whom you have made a time commitment.
With each new day that we wake up blessed with another day of precious life, we receive a treasure chest full of the treasure of time, ours to spend as we choose. And every single one of us gets the same amount of that treasure for that day, regardless of race, age, gender, economic status, or any other demographic factor. The treasure of time doesn’t discriminate. We each get exactly the same amount each day.
In future conversations, we’ll dig into how we spend out our time treasure and how we can go about spending more of it on what we choose. The point for today is that time is treasure.
TAKE step 1. Value the time treasure you have. And value everyone else’s, too.
2. A pre-agreed time is a commitment
The second step to arriving on time every time is understanding that a pre-agreed time is a commitment. When you choose to do an activity with someone else, and agree on a time to do that activity, whether it be a job, a class, a doctor’s appointment, or a lunch meeting, your agreement on a certain time has created a commitment, an expectation in the mind of someone else that you will, in fact, be there at the time you said.
Our lives are full of commitments that are quite serious. Work commitments, school commitments, marriage / partnership commitments, community service commitments, and the list goes on. Each kind of commitment carries its own degree of consequences for are not keeping that commitment. The consequences, for example, of not showing up for a court appearance, can be quite severe. By comparison, a more leisurely commitment, like meeting for lunch, carries a substantially lighter consequence for failure.
Due to lighter consequences, more leisurely personal commitments can sometimes seem “optional”. And yet, when you agree to a time, the expectation is exactly the same for each type of commitment, regardless of consequences. If I say, “I will meet you at 1:30”, I’ve created an expectation in your mind. I’ve said it and you should be able to rely on what I’ve said.
TAKE step 2. Time is treasure, and when you agree to spend it at a certain time with someone else, you have made a commitment.
3. Know and do ONLY the truly necessary pre-departure steps
Now that we have explored the philosophy behind the importance of arriving on time, we can get into the true nuts-and-bolts of exactly how to make it happen. Remember when I said that the plan was painfully obvious and easy? Now you get to find out why!
Simply put, when you’ve made a time commitment, list out the tasks you must do to prepare for that time commitment, then do only those tasks! Obvious, right?
To arrive at your list of “must-do” tasks, you have to start by listing everything you do currently. For example, suppose you work a job where your workday starts at 8 AM (this one was quite possibly the worst challenge for me). Which tasks do you perform habitually before you go do your job?
Well, first, you probably get out of bed. What else beyond that? Do you eat breakfast? Do you bathe? Do you pick out the clothes you’ll wear to work?
How about other less obvious tasks that you habitually perform before you go to work? For example, letting your car warm up for 10 minutes, walking to catch a bus somewhere, checking to make sure your home is secure for the day while you’re gone? This list will vary for each individual. The important point for now is to list out everything you do habitually before you go do your job.
While you’re making this list, you have to be extremely honest with yourself and include all tasks you perform, even if only occasionally, before starting work. Do you check your email? Scroll social media on your phone? Turn on the TV to catch a weather report or other programming? You can only start creating a future punctuality habit if you’re willing to be honest with yourself about every single task you do today. There’s no shame in listing these items out for yourself, and you’ll only be cheating yourself if you don’t.
Now, go back and review your list, picking out only those tasks that you truly must do before you leave for work. Throw out everything else. For example, scrolling social media. Is that something you MUST do before leaving, or could you possibly do that on your lunch break or at the end of the work day?
Now that you’ve made your list of tasks that are absolutely necessary before you leave for work, and thrown out those things that aren’t absolutely necessary, go back through your list one more time. Of those things you have listed as being absolutely necessary, are there any of them that you could do at a different time? For example, picking out your clothes for work. Is that something you could do the night before?
And now that you are absolutely, positively sure you have narrowed your list down to only those items that you must do before you leave for work, put that list somewhere where you’ll see it the night before and/or first thing in the morning. Tape it to your bathroom mirror. Stick a copy under your alarm clock. Keep a digital copy in your phone. Whatever method you choose, make sure you put the list right in your way where you can’t miss it.
TAKE step 3. Make that list and stick to it!
4. Estimate time pessimistically
4. Estimate time pessimistically
Now that you’ve made your list, it’s time to assign an estimated completion time to each item on that list. You can then use the total of those estimated times to calculate your “start getting ready” time.
You’ll find throughout our conversations in Time Diamonds that I am a very optimistic person. I almost always recommend optimism as a foundation mindset when attacking any kind of problem in life. But calculating your task times is one major exception where you must always estimate pessimistically.
Estimating pessimistically simply means that instead of assuming you’ll be able to perform each necessary task in the “best case” least amount of time possible, you must assume that unforeseen circumstances will result in task times taking longer than the best-case scenario.
For example, suppose you’ve identified that you must eat breakfast before leaving for work in the morning. Furthermore, assume that, best case, it’s possible for you to prepare and eat your breakfast in 15 minutes. So, you may be tempted to allocate 15 minutes for your breakfast in your task time calculation.
Instead, you must assume that each task will take longer than expected. In my experience, 50% is a good safe “padding” to add to the estimated time for each task. Back to our breakfast example, while it may be possible for you to have your breakfast in 15 minutes, you should add 50% to that estimate. 50% (or half) of 15 is 7.5. Adding that 7.5 to your original 15, you have 22.5 minutes (which you could just round up to 23).
Adding this 50% padding allows for unforeseen circumstances. For instance, what if it’s time to eat your breakfast and you find that you don’t have the supplies you need? If you had planned to have a piece of toast, for example, but you are out of bread, you’ll need to substitute some other equivalent food item instead. That adjustment will take time, which you must allow for in your padding.
When it comes to travel times, I would go even further and add 100% padding. For example, if you’ve found that your commute to work by train can take as little as 45 minutes, you may be tempted to use that best-case 45 minutes as your travel time estimate. Instead, you should add 100%, or another 45 minutes, to that estimate for a total of 90 minutes.
I know the 100% travel padding sounds ridiculous at first, but travel is one of the tasks that you often have the least control over and is prone to the most extreme “unforeseen circumstances” (traffic jams, for instance). I still recommend that you start with 100% travel padding. Your experience over time may allow you to start reducing that amount of padding to something more reasonable.
Now that you have listed your necessary pre-departure tasks and estimated the time for each task, you can add the tasks times together to arrive at the grand total amount of time you need to allow for preparation. Subtract that total amount of time from the arrival time to which you have committed, and you’ll then have the time at which you need to start preparing.
I know the self-discipline of making this list and calculating times may feel very mechanical and forced at first. But you’ll feel an extremely gratifying reward for your efforts, though, when you find that you are consistently arriving on time for every single commitment you make. As that habit takes hold in your life, others will begin noticing that you arrive on time every time. And eventually, the punctuality habit will become so deeply ingrained in your mind that you don’t need lists at all. You’ll automatically and instinctively know what you need to do and when in order to arrive on time every time!
TAKE step 4. Estimate your time pessimistically!
In closing, here are those four steps again:
1. Treasure time – yours and everyone else’s
2. A pre-agreed time is a commitment
3. Know and do ONLY the truly necessary pre-departure steps
4. Estimate time pessimistically