How To Always Be On Time With These 4 Tips

I used to be that girl who showed up fashionably late to everything! It was a running joke among my family and friends that I was running on jewish time since I never seemed to be on time for almost anything. Eventually I decided enough was enough, I no longer was going to be that girl anymore! Using these 4 tips, I was able to ensure I was always on time:

1. Give Yourself Plenty Of Time To Get To Your Destination

One of the biggest things that would make me late was only giving myself just the right amount of time, down to the second, to get somewhere. For example, if I thought it would take 15 minutes to get somewhere and I had to be there at 7 pm, my butt was not even thinking about getting in a car before 6:45 pm. It is inevitable that the commute will take longer than you expect. You’ll hit every red light, there will be an accident slowing down traffic, it will start to rain/snow, your uber or lyft driver will arrive later than the estimated wait time predicted when you ordered it, etc.

Give yourself a buffer and accept the fact that it’s okay to arrive a little bit early. Arriving early will not hurt you. I’ve decided to live life saying “it’s better to arrive early, than to arrive late.” Keep reminding yourself of this and you’ll find yourself arriving on time or early rather than late.

2. Make A Plan

Making a plan has two different aspects to it.

Get a planner

One of the best things I ever did was purchase a planner. I specifically got a life planner from Erin Condren. In it, I plan out the tasks I need to do and how long it will take me to accomplish each of them. This also includes travel times to all destinations I’d be going to. Planning out your day this way makes it that much more likely that you will arrive on time when you need to get somewhere. But don’t try and jam too much into one day.

Most of the time we don’t give ourself enough time which sets us behind schedule from the beginning. Also, track to see if the amount of time you gave yourself to do a task or to get to a certain location actually took that long. If a task took longer than expected, make a note so you properly plan for the next time. If it took less time than expected, make a note of that as well.

Plan your outfit(s) the night before

Do you know how much time we spend trying to put together an outfit? The answer is a lot. What we think works in our heads sometimes doesn’t end up looking as we expect and we have to pick out something new. When you figure out you outfit(s) the night before, you eliminate however long it takes you to decide on a look the next day when you’re trying to stay punctual. You may think I’m crazy but trust me, this works!

 

3. Be Proactive In Working To Make A Change

You can’t wake up and just be on time when you’re notorious for being late. You have to proactively work on making a change. We fall into a habit of being late that it becomes the norm for us. Using these tips is a great way to start ensuring you are proactively working to make a positive change! I was once told that it takes 30 days of repeatedly doing something in order for that to become a routine. Once you get in the habit of making the changes to ensure you’re on time, it will become your new habit and routine to be on time. But the saying goes, old habits die hard, so it’s on you to make sure those bad habits are changed.

4. Fight The Urge To Always Check Your Phone

This one has saved so many times! I found myself getting ready and in the middle being like “hey, I’ll just quickly check IG super fast, it’ll only take 2 seconds and I’ll get right back to finishing my makeup”… 10 minutes later I’ve scrolled through my entire IG feed, watched IG stories & snap stories, scrolled through Facebook, checked twitter, checked my email, checked my LinkedIn, and you see what I’m getting at here. I’m telling you now to PUT THE PHONE DOWN.

It was hard for me to do this at first. I wanted to be connected and engaged all the time. I didn’t want to feel like I was missing out on something someone posted on social media. Trust me, the sky will not fall if you don’t check your phone. The post the someone made on IG will still be there when you check your phone later. I swear that after I implemented this, it was so much easier for me to fix my bad habit of being late. Sometimes I’ll even beat Matt in getting ready because of this and that used to never happen lol.

 

I hope these tips help you! What are some other ways you use to make sure you’re always punctual? Let me know in the comments!

PS – make sure to check out what it’s actually live to live with your significant other and the must have jeans for only $70!

 

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