Are You Punctually Challenged? Diana DeLonzor Has the Cure

I am a reformed punctually challenged person. No matter where I was going I was always 10 minutes late. I always had an excuse. Even if I made sure I was ready to go in plenty of time to get where I was going.

Being late made me feel anxious. It caused me stress. My mind would start looking for reasons that made me late. My reasons sounded lame because it was just me “finding last minute things” to do before I left the house. I created my own time crunch.

Sure there were times that uncontrollable events happened that caused me to be delayed. Traffic backed up for miles on the interstate because of a car wreck. (I used to work in Baton Rouge and traffic was pure torture.) I got trapped in the lane that wasn’t moving. Trust me, you do not want to be in that lane! It is hard to jump over to the fast moving lane once you have come to a stop. I would get excited that I had a “real” reason that delayed me on those days I really would have been on time.

There’s more. I’ve answered the phone when I knew I didn’t have the time to get involved in a conversation. I decided to stop for breakfast and the “fast” food drive-thru lane took longer than I expected. (Although it usually took about the same amount of time that it always did.) Late again!

I was good about making phone calls to let others know I was going to be a few minutes late. If they ever asked why, I told them whatever really happened. It always sucked! Especially when my reasons were purely controllable by me.

When I chose the path of being an organizer, in 2003, my research uncovered the most amazing book that was written especially for me. I’m surprised it didn’t have my name in the title, like this, “Melody, never be late again.”

By delving into this book, I learned a lot about the root cause of my lateness:

The psychology research of lateness study from Cleveland State University found that: “Tardy subjects differed from their timely counterparts in a number of personality characteristics, with late people scoring measurably lower on nurturance and higher on both long and short term anxiety.” Diana DeLonzor (the author of this amazing book, never be late again) and the San Francisco State University conducted a survey aimed at asking questions and determining what causes chronic lateness. They studied 225 people who were given personality tests and questioned about their punctuality attitudes and habits. The late scored higher in anxiety and distractibility. They placed somewhat lower than the “on-timers” in the areas of self-esteem and self-discipline.

In a nutshell, that’s me! Yay, I have a reason to be late! It’s not my fault. It’s just the way I am.

Wrong. There is help. You can be on time. REALLY. I am proof. I did it! I slip every once in a while, but I am not fond of the stressfulness of it, so I try to get back on track real fast. There are other reasons that I enjoy being on time. My #1 reason is it…feels so freaking good!

Never be late again will provide you with more than just time management skills. In fact, I find it refreshing that time management is not the main focus of this book. It is so much more!

My favorite subtitles in the book are:

“Overcoming the Rebel Habit”

“Managing the Late Employee”

“Learn to Find Control in More Constructive Manners”

“Learning to Stay Focused”

“Needing a Crisis to Get Motivated”

Other things you will learn are: