by Cassell Ferere

Psychologists have been studying the reason behind chronic lateness. With a plethora of reasons, it has been concluded that it is mostly due to personality types. Type A and Type B. While many peripheral reasons attribute to the habit of lateness, it has what Sumathi Reddy calls planning fallacy. 

 When we think of time, different connotations can be determined between each individual. With time equaling money, it has a cost to any parties involved in the rendezvous. There is also the fact that what’s important may be swayed by the fact that someone is late, showing a display of neglect to a degree. Like when your friends are late for meet-ups, likely safe to contribute their lateness to multi-tasking beforehand. This can also be a sign of what prioritizes being on time as opposed to completing as many tasks while still active before seated – and stagnant -  in a meeting.

Efficiency

Efficient people tend to manage things at a high level. What differentiates the latecomers from the early birds is personality, first. Type A’s are go-getters and task rabbits. It doesn’t mean they are people in higher positions just that they are capable of being organized enough to be punctual. Type B is laid-back and somewhat opposite.

Time Analysis

Both personalities see time different. Type A tends to have a quicker notion of what a minute feels like as opposed to Type B personalities who feel a minute to be longer, underestimating the time it takes to complete a task. This is the planning fallacies that Reddy refers to. The difference in the thought of time adds up to why some of us are occasionally, or always, late. 

Multi-Tasking

Those who tend to try and accomplish the most in the allotted amount of time before meetings tend to be late – CEOs have been guilty of this, as “Fighting a fire is more fun than attending a meeting” says Del Jones in his research. The multi-tasker falls into this category as well.

 Adoree Durayappah-Harrison writes we may just be fearful of the time wasted being early as opposed to arriving late. This is the cost relationship between being late or early to meetings and opposes to being on-time – like that’s easy. Thousands of dollars can be accounted for when arriving late or even early to meetings, according to Citigroup CEO Sanford Weil, Del Jones notes. 

Solution

Solutions to this may be to step back from the work and task in front of you and dissect each into the smaller task – think practically – and account for all steps leading to your perceived immediate goal. Sumathi Reddy mentions this approach would help you see where you are spending most of your time, and on what, as opposed to gathering yourself for a meeting. 

Chronic lateness, or being late on occasion can be remedied as much as one can prescribe a placebo. More so, we take our time for granted as much as we do our human counterparts. And researchers are figuring out that this is more mental illness than it is a mental lapse. Therefore, we can assume that lateness will be a constant problem until those who trend late arrivals decide to change their habits.

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