Update on my punctuality pledge

20 May 2009

A week ago, I blogged about how my aversion to being early (and tendency to be late) almost cost me my life when I started driving down the wrong side of a downtown St. Louis road, thinking I’d turned onto a one-way street.

After that happened, I vowed to give myself the gift of being early to appointments. I’ve taken that vow pretty seriously and I wanted to provide an update.

In the past week, I’ve had six appointments. I’m proud to say that I haven’t been late to any of them. I haven’t always been 15 minutes early (usually, it’s more like five), but I’ve at least been on time. (One of the appointments was getting to the airport by 5:45 a.m. this morning, so not being late at that hour felt like a real achievement!)

It has felt so great to not be eyeing the clock nervously in the car, calculating whether I’ll get there on time, or how late I’ll be. It has taken so much pressure off of me. And all it’s taken is planning to leave the house 15 minutes earlier than I need to.

Two weeks ago, I blogged about how we should try to allow life to be easy. How sometimes we get in our own way and how I crave a life of ease, one I glide through effortlessly.

My foray into punctuality has made me realize that my tendency to cram as much in as possible before I leave the house has made it very difficult to let life be easy. This shift in my thinking not only is helping me be more professional by arriving on time or early to appointments. it’s also giving me a marked improvement in my quality of life. If I’d realized what a difference it would make, I would have tried it sooner!

Tagged with: control, punctuality, time management