LATE AGAIN? Here are 3 Steps to Get You Back On Track for That 8 a.m. Deadline!

Derek J. Lovett, Time Management Coach

April 17, 2025

I have never been privy to the inherent secret drive of those individuals who have effortlessly made it to every event either early or on time since birth. My brother, for instance, is one of those individuals. He undoubtedly will carefully plan his entire weekend around being on time for a casual 6:00 p.m. family Zoom meeting. I, on the other hand, am predisposed to forgoing the mental exercise of planning until the very moment at which I must then rack my brain to make it to my destination even remotely on time by pulling in on two wheels. But, now in my 40's, I can really do without the adrenaline rush, and maybe you can, too. Hopefully the following will shed some light on some simple steps you can take if you have been plagued by the tardy bug.

As fate would have it, one that struggled all his life with time management would become a time management coach. And on my path to coaching I can attribute one particular set of circumstances to me cracking the code on why I had been prone to being late virtually all of my life. In my first job out of college I was fortunate to draw the hand of a boss who was a stickler for being on time. While him hounding me every morning about me pulling up at 8:01 or 8:02 seemed excessive, it was that constant psychological pressure that eventually pushed me to discover a solution to my pain.

One morning as I evaluated the steps that I took for getting ready I realized a couple of significant factors in my preparation equation. The first one was that, while I had a general idea of the time I needed to get ready, I had no real gauge for staying on track. Number two, probably even more significant than the first, was that I realized I typically was starting my preparation too late. This had become habitual. Inevitably, whenever I would need to prepare to be somewhere my assessment would start with me feeling like I had substantially more time than I needed to adequately prepare. Naturally, this would result in my mismanagement of time until the point that I was then crunched for time.

As I reflected on these factors, I stumbled upon what I like to think of as “Time Management 101" for getting places on time. And like most effective tools, it is incredibly intuitive. It simply requires an individual to assess the time it takes him or her to complete individual tasks. The process looks like this:

1.) I wrote down the time I needed to leave the house.

2.) I then made a list of all the things I needed to do in order to leave (and the time required for each).

3.) Finally, I started from the time I needed to leave and worked backwards setting certain time-oriented benchmarks for each task.

This was effective for several reasons. Foremost, I now knew my starting point and ending point. Furthermore, I could periodically reference the time relationship between what I was actually doing in the moment and what I should have been doing according to my schedule. This allowed me to ask myself a series of guiding questions such as, “Am I at the place I said I needed to be by this time?” “If not, then what can I do to adjust?” “Do I need to cut something out or speed something up?”

At the time I didn't know that this was the foundation of a burgeoning planning framework I would later develop. In essence, I have come to realize that any plan, be it yearly, monthly, weekly, or daily, encompasses the same fundamental aspects. One needs to:

(1) identify an outcome

(2) figure out what that outcome requires

(3) measure the progress of that outcome, and

(4) modify as necessary to ensure the desired outcome.

Looking back, I can summarize my folly in one statement: I felt like I had too much time. My morning routine was just a microcosm of my life. In my case, it reflected my lack of planning in every aspect of my life. Many individuals, if honest with themselves, can admit similar sentiments. While we all have things that matter to us, we also have a tendency to neglect the sense of urgency with which we should treat the time we have to do those things. If this is an area you feel you need to improve in, then I encourage you to start today. For assistance, make sure you download our 5 Steps to Better Time Management guide below!

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