This is another procrastination pattern that affects many. Are you always late to functions, meetings, classes, dates, hangouts? You always wait for the last minute rushes. Then you give excuses with traffic, or you couldn’t find your shoe or earrings, or your neighbor delayed in moving his car out of the way so you could drive out. But all these happened within those last 5mins, but suddenly, they’re the reason you’re late. I used to be a victim too.

• Reason: You always think you’re too early. In your mind “What will I be doing for a whole 30mins before the meeting starts?” You want to be arriving exactly when the event is starting, or at your resumption time at work. Then all of a suddenly, you’re rushing to meet up even though you finished applying your make-up 45mins earlier, but started pressing your phone to while away time.

• Solution: Push forward timing. If your ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) is 12pm, record it as 11.45am, so that if you meant to leave at 11.45 and arrive at 12, you leave at 11.30. That way, even if your neighbor takes 10mins to move his car for yours, you’d still arrive at 11.55am.

Sounds easy? No it isn’t, you need to apply discipline and few tricks to get your lazy brain onboard, haha. Here’s what you can do:

Because your brain knows that your ETA is 12pm and not 11.45am, there’s a tendency that your subconscious will naturally revolt and keep reminding you of that; like “What’s your problem huh? The time is 12pm, stop stressing us and relax joor”.

So try writing 11.45am boldly and pasting on your mirror and one or two other visible places like your bathroom door the night before you sleep.

Writing is the easiest weakness of our stubborn brain. It calls to mind what we want to do and keeps the picture vivid in our mind.

Speaking is another; so say it out loud too: “I need to be at the office at 11.45am”, “It is very important for me to be at this meeting at 11.45am”.

You can also trick your brain with a reward mechanism where you name what fun thing you will do if you arrive early; for instance: “When I arrive early, I will indulge Twitter and get the latest trending topics”.

Write and speak. When you’ve done this daily and also for other events, you will begin to get used to preparing and arriving ahead of time.

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