I’ve always said, “Better late than never”.  But, did you know that the actual quote, made famous by George Bernard Shaw, is “Better never than late”?  The premise is that it is better to not go at all than risk the rudeness of being late.

Sitting in the Barnes & Noble café, early for a new client meeting, I reflect on this famous quotation.  Yes, you heard right, early!  Now, I’m ALWAYS on time for new client meetings, but this day I was actually early.  My early arrival was a lucky break because the café was completely full when I arrived.  With the extra time, I was able to patiently wait for a table (that seats 3) to open.

I never mind when anyone I’m meeting is running late, for several reasons:

• We’re kindred spirits, not bound by a strict adherence to time.
• I can watch the relief wash over them when I say, “It’s not a problem”.
• It gives me extra time to do things like make lists or write a quick blog post.

My new client is now 20 minutes late and I’m beginning to get a little anxious.  Not because they’re late – I know they’re heading to our meeting straight from another one.  It’s likely that meeting is running over or they’re stuck in traffic.  It’s a great project (a business plan) and I’m excited about working with them.

It’s 30 minutes past the scheduled time and I’m still waiting, wondering how long I should continue to wait.  I call the client’s mobile number and hit voice mail, leaving a message asking if and when they might arrive.  I wait a little longer.  After an hour, I call it a day and head back to my office, with a definite preference for “better late than never”!

What’s your preference?

It’s been years since I’ve been to the Ford dealership for service; not since I found Gary, a BP mechanic in the neighborhood, who takes good care of me and Old Bessie.  However, I received a letter from Ford informing me of a recall for some wiring with the cruise control that could cause my Explorer to catch fire while driving or parked.  The letter advised that I park it away from any structures to prevent the fire from spreading.

This sounds pretty serious, so I make the call.  It’s a simple fix – 30 minutes or so.  Not a morning person, I arrange to bring it by on Thursday afternoon.  Then I remember the days – having my vehicle serviced at a dealership.  The later in the day you arrived, the longer you waited for the repairs.  I spent many hours in the waiting room.  Okay, how about 7:30 am?

My daughter’s school bus arrives at 6:55, so the plan is to continue on my way to the Ford dealership.  I set out my notepad and a book to read, along with the recall letter for the morning.  I didn’t sleep well and although I’m ordinarily a light sleeper, didn’t hear the alarm.  Emily woke me at 6:30 (10 minutes later than usual).  When the bus pulls out, I head back to the house to brush my teeth.

At 7:30, I’m finally on my way. When I arrive, I expect to pull up to the back of a long line of cars.  Not only was there no line, there were none in the service bays.  I approached the service tech, asking if it was an off day or just the economy, apologized for my lateness and he said, “Not a problem”.

Handing over the keys, I head to the waiting room.  I was there long enough to catch a cool story about a Twitter hookup with Conan O’Brien on Good Morning America, jot a couple of things onto my grocery list and read two or three pages of my book.  And I was on my way.  Not a problem!

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine

Staying home to watch the rain

And you are young and life is long

And there is time to kill today

And then one day you find

Ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run

You missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter

Never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to nought

Or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone

The song is over

Thought I’d something more to say

Home, home again

I like to be here when I can

When I come home cold and tired

It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire

Far away across the field

The tolling of the iron bell

Calls the faithful to their knees

To hear the softly spoken magic spells

www.PinkFloyd.com

Punctuality Advocates show up on time every time and certainly have my admiration.  But what do they accomplish once they arrive?  Sure, ideally we’d all be on time every time AND accomplish great things.  Given a choice, I’ll take quality over quantity every time.  When your time is up, will it matter more that you were on time or that your time was well-spent?

Getting into The Zone or tapping into a creative stream of thought can be extremely difficult given all the demands in our lives.  It is essential to the creative process to break away from the constraints and limitations imposed by time.  Allowing time for your mind to wander is critical for ideas to flow freely.

Tonight is a perfect example.  It’s almost 2 am and I should be sleeping.  Tomorrow is a full day that begins with an 8:30 am telephone interview for an article about one of my clients.  Hard as I tried to put my thoughts on a shelf for the night, they won’t let me sleep.

When I’m working on a project that involves research, brainstorming, writing and planning, I have to tune out time, the telephone and other distractions.  And when I have a day filled with meetings and phone calls, I don’t get a lot of writing done.  The Zone is not specific to my work.  It’s that place where you are so focused and in tune with what you’re doing, you don’t even notice how much time has passed.  When you do notice, you still can’t tear yourself away.

Lateness is sometimes the result of intense focus on the task as opposed to the time.  Not to be confused with inability to focus on time, but a conscious decision to focus on something more important; being present.  Being present and getting into the zone takes focus.  Being present means you are totally in the moment, not distracted by your To Do list.  It’s actually a skill that takes practice and effort to master.

Ever have a conversation with someone, only to realize they are not even in the same room?  A million miles away…not really.  They’re simply time traveling; replaying something that happened yesterday, planning the rest of their day or imagining the consequences of being late for their next appointment, instead of giving you their full attention.

So…what’s more important to you…being present or being on time?

Chronic Lateness Is a Pervasive and Expensive Problem, But It Can Be Tackled

While Americans are planning and scheduling their lives more than ever before, it seems they can never quite catch up.

A recent survey found 15 to 20 percent of the U.S. population is “consistently late,” especially when it comes to work.

Chronic lateness isn’t just annoying — it’s expensive. American CEOs are late to eight out of every 10 meetings, according to a 2006 survey by Proudfoot Consulting. And when CEOs are late by 10 minutes every day, it costs the U.S. economy $90 billion in lost productivity.

“It’s a huge drain on productivity when meetings consistently start 10 or 15 minutes behind, and tardiness has a snowball effect as one person’s lateness affects the productivity of his or her colleagues,” said Diana DeLonzer, author of the recently published “Never Be Late Again, 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged.”

For some, being chronically late can be damaging and embarrassing. For others, it’s a way of showing power or prestige.

In a 1997 San Francisco State Univeristy study, DeLonzor found that the punctually challenged often shared common personality characteristics such as anxiety, low levels of self-control, or a penchant for thrill-seeking.

“People who tend to who have low self-control, for instance, will tend to procrastinate more in general because they have difficulty motivating themselves,” she said.

A Lifetime of Lateness

Althea Kippes is a San Francisco lawyer who’s been late for most of her life. She was even late to her college graduation at the University of California–Berkeley.

“Other people have addictive behaviors that keep them from being all they could,” she said. “This is sort of like that.”

Kippes’ schedule is jam-packed. A typical day starts with a personal trainer appointment at 8 a.m., a meeting with her boss at 10 a.m. and a client lunch at 11:30 a.m.. But Kippes is guilty of ignoring her alarm clock and sleeping in, which means she struggles to catch up for the rest of the day.

After she showed up to lunch with her client an hour late, Kippes admitted she needed help.

“I’m actually kind of shooting myself in the foot because I’m just really, I’m not able to meet all these expectations I’ve created for myself,” she said.

Experts say there are many different types of chronically late people. First, there’s the rationalizer — the type that blames outside factors, like their children or spouse.

Then there are the absent-minded professor types — those who are forgetful.

The most common type of tardy person is someone like Kippes, a deadline-driven adrenaline junkie.

“Adrenaline, it can be addictive in a sense,” DeLonzer explained. “Your heart pounds faster. Your temperature rises. And the tension can be a very pleasurable experience.”

Finally, there’s the rebel type — someone who defies authority, who can actually get a physiological high by keeping others waiting for them.

“They might even get a bit of ego boost when they keep other people waiting,” DeLonzer said. “They feel as though they are important, and people are willing to wait for them.”

Tips for Tackling Tardiness

Regardless of the reason, most people who are chronically late want to get their lives back on track. DeLonzer suggested the following tips for tackling tardiness.

• Plan to be early. Tack on a 15 minute buffer before getting anywhere.
• Learn to tell time. For a week, track how much time it takes to get certain tasks done. Set a kitchen timer to ring when it’s time to leave the house.
• Learn how to say “no.” Pare down activities and don’t over-commit.
• Don’t be a perfectionist. Agonizing and obsessing over details only contributes to lateness — so loosen up.
• Limit distractions. Turn off the radio and TV.
• Get out the door. Resist the impulse to rush back into the house for “just one more thing.”
• Make up a threat. Tell friends that if you’re late to dinner, you’ll buy wine for everyone. If the threat of being inconsiderate isn’t enough, a hit to the wallet might do the trick.

And yet everyone has to wait on the person who’s late, right?

Most people who know me well know I’ll most likely arrive a little later than scheduled, unless my lateness makes people wait. I hate to make people wait for me.  I’m always on time for meetings that can’t start without me.  If I’m the moderator, I’m always on time.

How inconsiderate to keep people waiting!!!  When Punctuality Advocates (PAs) wait for the Chronically Time Challenged (CTC), they get more and more irritated with each passing minute.  They attribute all kinds of other reasons for the CTC’s lateness.  If this was really important to them…if they cared about their job…if they weren’t so inconsiderate.  And really truly, it can be just as important to the CTC, who cares a great deal about her job and is a most considerate person in all other ways.

Please don’t wait for us.  We know what time you plan to start and don’t expect you to wait for us, especially knowing how much it annoys you.  We know we may miss something when we’re late.  But, we don’t want to take time away from your agenda.  We’re ready to hit the ground running and will get up to speed on our own time.

I say, “Please start without us and save everyone the grief.”

Whaddaya say?

by Luis Dumois

Many years ago, on one of my first trips to the United States, I had the opportunity to attend to a rather formal party, organized in honor of one of the local personalities at the small, charming Midwest city I was visiting. I remember that I received a printed invitation, and I also remember something that took my attention at the moment. Not only the precise hour for the party to begin, but also the time for the event to end as well, were both clearly expressed on the invitation.

Following the long kept Mexican tradition, I arrived at the house in question at least half an hour late. Upon my entrance I was saluted by sardonic half smiles and obviously artificial courtesies. All of the invited guests were already there of course, and it was easy to notice that they had been partying for a while – half an hour perhaps, concentrating their efforts on the conversation, the drinks and the food. A standing crowd, talking and talking like hell and eating and drinking likewise.

After a long while of performing in a similar manner, I started to look, with certain uneasiness, for a place to sit down. Impossible. It was clear to me that the so called party was to be celebrated on foot, fatigue or not fatigue, leg pain and tiredness notwithstanding. I began to feel sorry for myself and for the rest of the people around me. Thank God, the California red they were serving was very drinkable.

In that manner time passed until suddenly, with no apparent motive, everybody started to say goodnight and to move towards the front door. I sighed in relief. At last I was going to sit down! I was about to take possession of a fluffy armchair located to one side of the living room when the lady of the house came to me, plastic smile in her face, to ‘goodnight’ me in a most unwelcome fashion. “But I don’t want to leave!”, said I to myself. An ancient wall clock started to sing the hours. Only then I came to understand what was going on. The precise moment for the party to end, as was specified in the written invitation, had come.

I dedicated a last nostalgic look to the soft armchair, hurriedly drank the rest of my wine, and managed to answer as best as I could to the gentle but clearly firm pressure from my hostess. On the way to my hotel I could not but recall old times and fiestas gone by in my Guadalajara. Guests there, as well educated and self respected people do, arrive at the party not less than an hour late, have the best of times with a good mariachi or trío, dance and disorder, soul and song, only to say goodnight when they feel like it, not worrying at all at unmeaningful details like hours and clocks.

In my long relationship with people from the North I have always been surprised by the interest and significance our neighbors assign to two variables: weather and punctuality. I was never able to understand why that obsession with climate. Well, until I spent a winter in Indiana. I agree now, weather is important, and you have to watch it closely, unless you want to dawn yourself one day, frozen to death, in a corner.

But the idea of punctuality, I must confess, still eludes me. I just don’t see why it is so important for a person to arrive exactly on time to a date, be it a business meeting or any other type of engagement. I’m willing to accept – and not very enthusiastically I’m afraid, – that business appointments should take place at the negotiated hour, taking into account the crazy haste in which we are immersed nowadays. Even in this case I must cast a shadow of doubt over the true value of punctuality. I see how people run and never stop and sweat day in and day out, but almost no one I know is truly aware of the direction his or her actions are taking them. Why such a hurry then?

And the very intention to regulate with mathematical precision the schedule of parties and entertainment, well, that goes far beyond my reasoning. That Anglo-Saxon insistence on the job well done, and in order, so that things must be accomplished in accordance with the plan, even in the field of pleasure and joy, find no place in my conception of life. I just can’t take myself that seriously, no sir.

Maestro Fuentes Mares liked to relate this story. One day he was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, taking an evening stroll around the deserted streets of the city with his wife. Suddenly and to his surprise, he had a police patrol car at his side. “What are you doing?”, the man at the wheel asked them. “Nothing. We are just walking.” The policeman looked at them as if he was staring at the most stupid thing in this world. “But, are you not going to any place?”, he insisted. “No. We are just walking.” The man could not take it anymore, so he ordered them to return to their hotel immediately. He could not resist the idea of that ultimate show of inefficiency, two despicable aimless persons walking by without a concrete, clear objective. That policeman would never understand what it is to spend a tranquil afternoon in the company of a good friend, Del Mono anisette on the table, time an ally, not the enemy, a delightful chat with no definite intention in mind.

No doubt homosexuality has something definitely attractive: I know many who have crossed the line, but not one of them, as far as I know, has ever returned. The same happens with unpunctuality. There must be something good about it, because gringos who come to live down here get immediately used to it. I have constant deals with a certain magazine editor, a North American who moved to the Chapala area years ago. Never, and I mean never since we met has he arrived in time to a meeting with me. Something which speaks highly of him, of course. But above all, something truly positive to show about unpunctuality. On the contrary, when one of these unfortunate men or women return to the North, and they are forced to go back to the cruel habit of arriving in time all the time, the suffering must be almost unbearable.

In spite of everything I’ve said, I must admit that unpunctuality has its risks. The story of my friend Pedro is proof of that. Years ago, Pedro decided to take a different kind of vacation. He went to a small town on the coast of the state of Jalisco, to pledge himself for several weeks, to the productive activity of doing nothing. The only phone in town served us well to keep in touch, so I was able to follow him in his adventure.

Pedro, a fine looking fellow, bold and willing, fell in love at first sight with the local beauty, María. But she did not pay any attention to him. My friend, a stubborn and resolute businessman, came to know that María loved dangerous situations. Not far from the pueblito, a railway line crossed the country side. Pedro immediately noticed that the daily express train never, ever, arrived on time. Armed with these two vital pieces of information, he approached María to propose her the craziest adventure, to make love on the tracks at the precise scheduled time of arrival of the train.

At last the long cherished goal was attained. That same afternoon Pedro was in paradise. And it seemed to me that María liked something besides danger, because the experience was repeated time and again, as Pedro dutifully reported to me on the phone line.

Suddenly I stopped receiving his calls. A week later the news arrived. Pedro and María had died, both killed by the passing train. I took my car in dismay and drove to the coast, wondering along the road what could have happened. The old switch man at the train station told me the truth: the express train surprised them while they were making love on the tracks. “Poor Pedro,” said I. “The train arrived on time once in its lifetime to kill him.” The old man answered me, “No, my friend. The train arrived 24 hours behind schedule. Just in time, a whole day late.”

I could spend much more time conversing, reflecting over this interesting idea and leisurely spending my time with you, my friends. But it happens that I have to deliver this article to the editor right now. He must be thinking about the last recalcitrant writer who has not sent his text to the closing magazine issue. I’m late. Adiós.

by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker http://tiny.cc/1d8tP

At high noon last October 1st, the citizens of Ecuador did something they’d never dreamed possible: they synchronized their watches. In doing so, they embarked on a Campaña Contra la Impuntualidad, a national crusade against lateness. A group called Participacíon Ciudadana had orchestrated the initiative in order to combat Ecuadorans’ notoriously cavalier attitude toward time. The group enlisted the country’s only Olympic gold medallist, the race-walker Jefferson Pérez, as a spokesman, plastered cities and villages with posters (“Inject yourself each morning with a dose of responsibility, respect, and discipline”), and persuaded companies to bar tardy workers from meetings. Even President Lucio Gutiérrez, infamously unpunctual, vowed to participate. His spokesman, going on television to announce this vow, arrived at the studio, needless to say, several minutes late.

Such a campaign may seem farcical-no more critical to a country’s national interest than a crusade against poor spelling or bad breath-but it arose out of a basic economic fact: punctuality pays. According to one study, chronic lateness costs Ecuador $2.5 billion a year-hardly small change in a country with a gross domestic product of just twenty-four billion dollars. The fundamental challenge for a modern economy is to coördinate the actions of millions of independent people so that goods may be produced and services delivered as efficiently as possible. It’s a lot easier to do this when people are where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. This is especially true in light of recent innovations such as just-in-time manufacturing. Dell computer’s suppliers have to be able to deliver parts to Dell’s factories within ninety minutes. Under those conditions, “I’ll get to it later” won’t do.

The social psychologist Robert Levine, who has devoted decades to studying people’s ideas about time, suggests that cultures can be divided into those which live on “event time,” where events are allowed to dictate people’s schedules, and those which live on “clock time,” where people’s schedules dictate events. Unsurprisingly, countries that live on clock time are more successful economically-if perhaps less fun at night-than those which do not. In part, that’s because attitudes toward time tend to pervade nearly every aspect of a culture. In hyper-punctual countries like Japan, pedestrians walk fast, business transactions take place quickly, and bank clocks are always accurate. In less punctual places, such as Indonesia, pedestrians amble, workers dawdle, and bank clocks are usually wrong. In other words, Ecuadorans, who have been living on event time-known locally as Ecuadoran time-are trying to revolutionize the way they live and work.

Can they do it? There are obvious obstacles. Dawdling can be quite pleasant, especially when it’s what you’re accustomed to. There is also the tricky question of class. Lateness can be a way for the rich and powerful to assert themselves, to show how much more valuable their time is. In Ecuador, members of the military and the government are the most notorious offenders, and businessmen are far more likely to show up late than bluecollar workers are. And, as the economists Kaushik Basu and Jorgen Weibull have pointed out, in a country where everyone is always late, it becomes rational to be late. There’s no point in getting to a meeting on time if no one is going to be there. Tardiness feeds on itself, creating a vicious cycle of mañana, mañana.

What Ecuador really has to overcome is the idea that culture is destiny, that showing up late is just what Ecuadorans do. In the past two decades, great attention has been paid to the economic significance of cultural predispositions-to the role, for example, of trust and risk-aversion in the old Soviet-bloc countries’ fitful attempts to adapt to capitalism. Culture, we have discovered, matters more than many bondholders wish it did. But it is not immutable. In Western Europe and the United States, people once had to learn to become punctual, too. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, factory owners applied enormous effort (and plenty of coercion) just to get workers to show up on the right day, let alone at the right hour. The historian E. P. Thompson chronicled how the rise of the factory in Great Britain profoundly altered people’s notion of time, from one based on the calendar to one based on the clock. The shift from piece-rate work (where you were paid for what you produced) to hourly wages (where you were paid for how long you worked) also helped, as did the standardization of time zones, in the late nineteenth century.

By comparison, the people of Ecuador have it easy; they already have clocks, time zones, and hourly wages. All they need now is a kick in the pants. If you persuade enough people to be on time, it becomes rational for everyone else to be on time, too. The more people there are who are punctual, the greater the benefits of punctuality. That’s why a national campaign, silly as it may seem, makes some sense. It’s a call to shame, a nationwide tapping of the watch.

Maybe someday Ecuador will be welcomed into the community of punctual nations. And that might lead an observer with a sanguine cast of mind to wonder whether similar efforts might help wipe out other corrosive cultural tendencies around the world, like corruption. We are constantly being told, about social norms in places like the Middle East, “That’s just the way it is.” Perhaps. But by taking on tardiness Ecuador’s citizens are telling us something else: culture is what you do, not who you are. It’s about time, too.

I arrived on time for a new client meeting on Friday with an old friend.  He wanted to talk about getting media exposure for his firm.  As you know, I’m ALWAYS on time or early for client meetings, deadlines and opportunities.

The receptionist greeted me warmly, offered a soft drink and chatted with me while I waited for our appointment.  We had much in common and 10-15 minutes passed before I realized it.  When I asked where my friend was, she told me he was with a client and would be wrapping up shortly.

Not being a stickler for punctuality and understanding that the client comes first, I was not upset and waited some more.  As 3:30 came and went and my colleague didn’t come out to let me know how long he would be or if I minded waiting longer, I began to feel irritated.  Given that our meeting was scheduled for 3:00 – 3:45, at 3:35, I decided it was now too late.

I pleasantly asked the receptionist to reschedule our meeting as I had another appointment at 4:00.  An opening at noon on Tuesday would work and give my friend the opportunity to buy me lunch to make up for wasting my time.  I wished her a great weekend and was on my way.

How late is too late for you?

Anyone with children knows teaching moments are unpredictable and usually happen at the worst possible times.  Like flashes of brilliance, if they are not seized, they may not come back.  Our job is to teach our children to take care of themselves and contribute to their community.  There are many, many lessons required to achieve this objective.  And children aren’t always open to our lessons.  They are most open when they ask questions.  When they want answers, they will actually listen.  Lessons about life, love and happiness are too important to put on a shelf until later.

The morning after my daughter and I talked about my abusive childhood, she brought the subject up.  She was visibly shaken and needed reassurance.  It was more important to spend 10 minutes talking with her rather than it was to be on time.  I told her it happened a long time ago and I’m completely over it…that if what happened prepared me to better protect her, I’m okay with it.  She felt much better.  I dropped her off with a smile on her face and a late note in her hand.

Everything takes 2-3 times longer with a kid in tow.  Children, in general, lack a certain sense of urgency.  One of our missions is to instill this sense of urgency.  Despite warnings an hour before, reminders at T minus 15 and nipping at their heels when it’s time to go, they’re still not ready.  One day, I actually got my little chicky moving fast and regretted it.

Home from school unexpectedly on a really busy day, I rushed her all day with, “Let’s go…let’s go…let’s go!”  Finally, the day almost over, heading from the grocery checkout to the Chik-fil A counter, I looked back with another, “Let’s go…let’s go…let’s go.”  Emily obediently picked up her pace, smashing the shopping cart into the back of my heels so hard I yelled out loud and bent over in pain.  When I stood, I saw everyone staring at me.  Emily’s face had gone white.  “I’m sorry, Mom.  It was an accident.”  I don’t know, maybe I had it comin’.  I stopped rushing her so much after that day.