I was on time yesterday! But not today.

And other things I'm ashamed to admit I struggle with and sometimes read about

Once upon a time I wrote a now un-findable article for a defunct parenting magazine called something like “How to Be on Time for Everything” or “Never Be Late Again” or maybe “Hahaha Just Kidding” because that was over a decade ago and I am still vaguely late for most things and I like to kid myself that people don’t mind but I know they probably do. In it, I gave many helpful pieces of advice gleaned from expert interviews (as this is how one writes these “service” articles). And I did change… I went from always significantly late (to the point of being called out by a kid’s preschool teacher because said kid “hated being late to circle and you are always late”) to being mostly just a tiny bit late/sailing in with a squeal of tires right on the dot.

SO I was VERY PROUD when I made it to my doc appt this A.M. on time. (Although it was just for a vaccination and honestly they probably did not care.)

Then I was promptly late for dinner plans with friends less than 48 hours later. Embarassingly late. 15 full minutes, maybe 20 by the time I parked. What happened? Oh, all the things. I broke all the rules I learned in that old article:

1. Accept that things take the time they take. I had to close the chickens in. I had to shower and change my clothes. I “had” to put on makeup. I know how long it takes to do those things but I believe it should take less, and so I like to pretend that it will.

2. Don’t do “just one more quick thing”. I wanted to fill my water bottle with ice and the little packet of water flavoring that I like before I left. It made me later. Who do I think I’m kidding?

3. Don’t behave like you think you’re more important than other people. I wanted to wear make-up and not get dressed in a hurry. I wanted to fill my water bottle. I wanted to drive the jeep, which I hadn’t driven in a while, knowing it was likely I’d have to mess with it first but hoping I would not. I had to put the T-tops on. I could have skipped all of those things (there was another car I could have driven). I didn’t.

4. Don’t expect to teleport. I do take into account travel time, because we live 20 minutes from the town where we do nearly everything. But I don’t take into account enough travel time. Did I say 20 minutes? It’s 25, and that assumes you get where you’re going, leap out of the car, and leave it in the middle of the street (which the parking authorities frown upon). The grocery store has parking. For everything else, parking will take 10 minutes—it just will. Just because once I made it to coffee with a friend in 23 minutes by speeding, hitting all the lights right and getting that spot right in front doesn’t mean it will ever happen again.

I know not to do any of that and yet… I still do. Not as badly, not as often, but i backslide constantly. It’s just my nature, I want to tell myself. I’m a little flaky, Creative. Not bound by the clock.

One of the experts I interviewed for that long ago article was particularly harsh on that kind of thing in particular—harkening back to the ugly #3 on the above list. I can’t help it, I whined to her. This is just the way I am.

“Have you ever missed a plane?”

Well, no.

“Then you can help it. You just don’t want to.”

I think about those words all the time, particularly when I’m in the car, driving to a thing, and even though in that exact moment I am not yet late, I will be, because the thing is 2 hours away and I am supposed to be there in an hour and forty-five minutes.

All of that to say that one of the type of books I like to read is books on time management/being a better human. (That sentence is right. Type…is. Subject-verb agreement. It doesn’t sound right but it IS damnit.)

I like to read books on time management/being a better human. I’d like to be on time. I’d like to use my time on earth better. But mostly I’d like not to be a person who puts her desire to drive her cool yellow Jeep ahead of the needs of the three people waiting for her to order drinks. (They didn’t wait, because they’re not dumb, but still.)

My current read—at one short chapter a day or thereabouts (sometimes I forget) is Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. I like it as much as I did his last book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

But I have a pack of favorites, some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.

• Recipes for a Beautiful Life: A Memoir in Stories, Rebecca Barry. This won’t help you be on time. It will help you forgive yourself for all the little ways you fail every single day, especially if you have little kids. I love this book, I’ve read it countless times.

• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time, by Laura VanderKam. Reading and re-reading Laura reminds me that I’m making choices constantly about what I do and don’t “have time” for. When it matters, I make time. If I don’t want to do that… maybe it doesn’t matter that much to me. Or maybe I need to re-think what matters. I’m pretty sure Laura is the reason for many of my excellent habits, and also why I haven’t watched [insert really good TV show here]. Laura’s latest book is Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters and it’s excellent too, but I like my Laura classics.

• I reread Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, from Cal Newport, every year, because my life goals don’t involve Inbox Zero but sometimes it’s easy to forget that. His latest, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout is, like Laura’s, also great but Deep Work really speaks to me.

• If you’re a parent and want a saner life, my own How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute will help you get there. It will not, as I keep insisting to my own kids, make you a better parent. And certainly not a perfect one. What kind of terrible example would that set? Happier. That’s a very good goal if you ask me.

  

That’s what I’m thinking about—and reading— this week. Sometimes I think I love reading about time management and being a better human because it’s easier than, you know, actually doing something about it. But little by little, I evolve. Plus, like I said last week, (here) they’re books that don’t keep me up at night. Although maybe they should.

Anyone else out there struggle with getting places on time and hate accepting that it’s probably their own fault?! Please share. Make me feel better.