How To Be Punctual At Work

Punctuality is something that seems to be gradually slipping away nowadays. Some people are described as being "fashionably late" and you could almost set your watch by the time others are late. But, even if your social life is always in arrears, punctuality at work is still important.


The thing is that making phone calls, producing reports and attending business meetings need to happen on time, otherwise all sorts of other schedules slip.


So how can you be more punctual at work?


It could be as simple as setting your watch ahead of time. This used to be a lot easier before Windows decided to correct for all those inaccurate built-in computer clocks but it may still be an option.


Set yourself an alarm before the deadline. You'll know how long it takes you to get ready for things like meetings - making sure all your notes are ready, that you've had a restroom break and that your caffeine levels are suitably adjusted. Then - rather than pressing snooze when the alarm goes off - make it a habit to start preparing immediately. If that's an issue, build in an extra five minutes (or whatever) "faffing around" time so that you still arrive before the deadline.


Aim to be early. That may be a completely new concept for you but it has the advantage of some built-in flexibility. If you're aiming to arrive, say, 2 minutes early then there's a bit of time that can be used if necessary to still arrive on time. Who knows, you might even start to enjoy not rushing around like the Mad Hatter.


Time yourself doing things. We often underestimate how long certain tasks take. If your mind thinks that something takes 3 minutes but it actually takes double that on a day where nothing "bad" gets in the way then you're facing a punctuality recipe for disaster. Timing yourself will take more time at first but once you begin to realize just how long things really take then you'll be better prepared to meet those deadlines.


Talking of deadlines, don't do what Douglas Adams did when he was alive - he once said that he loved the wooshing sound that deadlines make as they fly by. That's sort-of OK for someone who wrote funny prose for a living (and even then it probably didn't help his income) but not for serious business deadlines.


If your deadline involves a journey between where you currently are and where you need to be, build in some slack. Car journeys don't always run smoothly, planes and trains can happily ignore timetables on occasion. It's all right to be late once in a while because something unexpected happened but if you know that the roads always get busier at certain times of the day then it makes sense to build that in to your calculations and help yourself to be more punctual.
Overall, a lot of being punctual at work or elsewhere is habit. If you decide break your old habits and be more punctual in future then that's a good step to take.






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Posted in: Time Managment