Top tip

I stress so much about being late for things that I usually plan to be 15 minutes early to things and just wait. i'll start to flip out if things go south and i'm merely going to be on time. I talked to my therapist about this and she tells me to practice being late. sounds hard but okay i do what she tells me right?
So next poker night i decide to be 15 minutes late (other people routinely are this late so this should be fine!)
Wellll because i'm the only punctual and reliable one the host had counted on me to let people in to her condo (I had keys cuz i'm so reliable!) while she handled the big food order. She didnt bother telling me this because I had never once been late. She ended up being pretty grumpy about it which felt unfair but girl did this have the opposite effect my therapist intended 😂
It has been about 8 months since then and i'm still trying to build up the courage to be late to something. Don't beat your children folks.
- I was never beat but I hate being late. I don't have an issue with it at all, I'm just... not late, and I don't see why I should practice being disrespectful with other people's time.
  Anyway, then I had kids and they're alway always slow which makes me late for everything, so I guess that's my punishment. I try to be zen about it.
  
  I'm just... not late, and I don't see why I should practice being disrespectful with other people's time.
  It's weird to me that their therapist just suggested disrespecting other people's time like that. Like sure, give yourself grace but... just be late? Why should you change? It's the tardy people that suck.
  
  I think being on time is a way of respecting another ones time.
  And if someone lets me wait, they aren't respecting my time and I... I'm not happy
- If it's just a habit you're into it's not like it's something bad? I guess everyone's anxieties are different but I always make sure to be early as well. It's just being well prepared and a responsible adult? Mine was never instilled in me it was something I learned to do naturally. Especially when it comes to something like the airport. Better to be a bit early and have some time to read a book or mess around on my phone than to be late and miss a flight. Not being critical of you, I get everyone has different mental health journeys, I'm just saying if being late requires planning and stress maybe that's not helping the problem either.
- Damn what an unfortunate coincidence, but also totally not your fault. And you know I'm sure everything turned out fine, right? Like the event didn't get cancelled. The "bad thing" that happened was a bunch of people standing around chatting for 15 minutes.
  I'm sure you've had to wait on someone for longer than 15 minutes. The world doesn't end, right?
  
  oh yes everything was okay by the end of the night, it just didn't help alleviate my excitability in the slightest. I'm still looking for opportunities to practice being late but i can't. don't want to be late to grocery pickup and mess up the workers, don't want to be late to the vet and get cancelled don't want to be late to a date and make them feel bad, etc.
- Be late to places where you yourself are not expected. If you’re late to poker or D&D or a concert that is not good, but a party with no schedule and a blanket invite to a bunch of people is totally fine to be late because people are expected to come and go.
  Even still, being on time is a good thing even if we can agree that the anxiety maybe isn’t.
  
  that's a good idea maybe i should find some flexible functions to practice on

Unironically, though.
Stop trying to be "on time" and start planning to arrive early. That way when something inevitably trips you up, you've got a buffer to work with, rather than any deviation automatically making you late.
Legitimately I started doing this when I realized I'm a better person when I'm not rushing. I can take my time getting there, maybe help someone get their bags to their car, chat with the panhandlers, hold doors open without wishing the other person would hurry up, etc.
Better than just flooding myself with cortisol all the way to my appointment and arriving all flustered and shit.
- My sister in law is chronically late. She uses this strategy and always tells herself a time 30 mins early, so she can get places on time.
  On one occasion my brother asked her what time dance class for the kids was. She tells him 12:00, so my brother - being an "always on time" person - gets there for 11:45 so he's a little early.
  Turns out the time my SIL told him was her personal fake start time, not the actual start time, so he's 45 mins early lol.
  
  "Personal fake start time" is a great term!
  It's transparent about what you're doing to others and leads into telling them the actual start time!
  
  Rofl almost this exact scenario happened to me for first day on a job. I asked my partner what time I had written on the calendar then padded it again.
  Plus side, it was a gallery job so I got to walk around and check out all the exhibits on my own, so when people asked me about them I actually had some deep reads.
- Being 15 minutes early is on time.
  Being on time is being late.
  Shit happens.
- On time is late. Nowhere do you show up "on time" and get started immediately. If you're getting to your 9am appointment at 9am, you've not accounted for parking, walking in, literally saying hello, taking your jacket off, whatever.
- For many people this is where the word s*** that you mentioned really does matter. The goal is to get to the thing before it begins which could be 30 seconds or 30 minutes early, whatever. And I think now when we all have digital devices, it's pretty easy to make use of your time by reading a book or the news or watching TikTok or whatever, so it's not like you're wasting time sitting around if you happen to arrive 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
- Honestly the thing that helped me the most with my time management was Google Maps repeatedly stabbing me in the back. I was always leaving at the last possible second, relying on maps to tell me what that second was.
  When I moved to the city and traffic became a serious concern, Google's '20 minute' estimate would balloon out to 30 minutes on important appointments like doctor's visits and work. So now I look at the estimate, add the higher of ten minutes or 30% to it, and make it comfortably on time to wherever I was meant to go.

Big "have you tried not being sad all the time" energy
- Wowimcured
- Nah. I can't stand people who are late for everything, because I somehow get there on time and early in spite of all the things trying to make me late. But every day I sit and wait for people who aren't. There's nothing stopping someone from being considerate to others and respectful of their time.
  
  Lack of time sense is a common symptom of ADHD. It literally breaks your internal metronome. Judging time becomes a lot more difficult.
  While it can be overcome, it requires good awareness of the underlying effect, and continuous effort to counter it. It's basically the equivalent of asking a paraplegic to just pop upstairs.
  Yes some people are just inconsiderate, but some people just honestly can't do it very well.
  
  "They shouldn't waste my time waiting for them, they should be early and waste their time waiting for the appointment!"
  No, but seriously, +/- 5 minutes is what it is. After that, it varies a lot on context.

We told a friend who was always up to an hour late that the event started at 3 instead of the real time of 4. He arrived exactly at 4, just when the rest rolled up too. He was so mad when he found out.
- Let me guess, they did the classic projection case of acting like they were mad because they felt "tricked"?
- We had a friend who we'd call when we were leaving wherever to go to his house to pick him up, "Hey, were outside." We would get to his house and wait 5-10m for him to come out because he was getting his shit together. So we'd call 5-10m before we got there. Love him though.
- "I was freaking out for an hour when I didn't have to??"
  "Are you saying you would have rather spent an hour somewhere else and didn't want to admit it to out faces?"
  Seriously though, it is disingenuous to tell them it's an hour early. But it's also rude to repeatedly be an hour late to things. You could argue being late is accidental and lying about a start time is intentional but after everything is said and done, it's kind of a wash, and the point should have been made.
  Simply telling them "hey, you're always an hour late, to the point where I'm tempted to tell you things start a hour earlier" may have been a more constructive way to approach things.

I used to be incredibly punctual, in spite of my ADHD, because I stressed out about it. Then I moved to Germany and everyone considered me late for being on time (or 5-15 minutes early, depending on the occasion), so I’ve given up.
- Just move to France and you will be just one time by being 30min late

!thanksimcured
- well a big part of being late is not liking waiting around if you show up too early

I have this one friend where we always tell him it starts 30 minutes earlier, just so he arrives reasonably on time

I have somewhere to be in 4 hours. It will take me about half an hour to get there. I could get up and start getting ready, or I can get a 4–hour head start on feeling bad for being late. While browsing Lemmy.
- Posted 3 hours ago, so you still have the better part of an hour to just chill and not worry. This is definitely the right approach.
  
  Important update: Motivated by my bout of self awareness, I decided to get in very early and prepared instead. I've been waiting for my friends in the freezing cold for half an hour. This is worse than being late.

H E A T H E N
Hisssss

I'm always 30+ minutes early to stuff. It's so bad. I always think i will be late, even when I'm 30 minutes early.
- Same. Have an appointment 20 minutes away? Ooh, better leave 40 minutes before, just in case.
  With the traffic, road work, and detours sometimes thrown in the way, this habit has been quite helpful. The last appointment I had let me in early because there was availability as soon as I arrived, so I got to leave earlier than expected.

Step 1: Live in a plave with great and punctual public transport (like switzerland)
Step 2: Arrive exactly at the right time
Step 3: ...
Step 4: The people you wanted to meet finally arrive 20 minutes late because they came by car. There was no trafic; Taking the car just makes you more lenient with your schedule.

"I planned to leave the house at 6 but I planned with a buffer so there is no rush to actually leave at 6."

An extra life hack: If you're going to be late, maybeet everyone knows before you're late. People are constant late with my work. Jon starts at 10. We get emails sent at 10:04, so and so is running 10m late. Let's send this shit 10m ago, because I'm sitting here doing nothing waiting to get started.

You clearly have no experience with ADHD. I have autism, I'm always way too early. My ADHD friends just don't work that way. They are always late, even when they plan on leaving early.
- Something always happens and because I'm not hyper sensitive about time I don't really mind if I'm delayed.
  It's usually because the cats won't come in. But I can't say I couldn't come because I was worried the cats would get wet so instead I blame traffic.
  
  Hahaha same here, I cannot leave the house when my cats are still outside. I taught them to come when I whistle, that really helps. Every time when I feed them or give them a treat, I whistle before I give it to them. After they get used to it, I give them something 75% of the time.
- I know this probably won't help but it's kind of funny. My D&D group years ago had one member who was consistently an hour or more late. So the DM started telling her the game was an hour earlier. People would show up slightly early for the real time, and she would straggle in apologetically, pretty much right on time. Worked like a charm for almost a year before she finally caught on.
- Yeah time gets wonky for us

be a wizard

ADHD sufferer here.
A lot of these commenters seem to be using their ADHD as a crutch. Most people in my sphere are late because arriving late gets them the attention they crave.
Sorry, but having ADHD is NOT a good excuse when it comes to being somewhere on time.
- attention? who does that? i can say for certain i don’t know a single person… i hate being late (and frequently am). it’s awkward and embarrassing and nothing else

I solved my poverty problem by making more money - click Like and Subscribe!

Aww, how naive.

🤯

ADHD doesn't work like that, and this whole discussion is full of the sort of responses ADHD folk get every day :\

Its not hard, set an alarm 2minutes before you should drive. Just stop what you're doing when the alarm goes off. It will wait on you to come back,,, no neeed for just anything. Get going
- Nope doesn't work. When the alarm goes off I ignore it, because I have 2 minutes.

Reminds me of the SNL skit about not buying things you cannot afford:
https://youtu.be/R3ZJKN_5M44

This post pisses me off. Literally no matter how much I try, plan, give triple double extra time to be ready, and attempt to be early.
With any or all of that there is no guarantee that I won't be late.
This is not a choice for me.
Fuck this post, and fuck all you people who think it's that simple. YOU are the problem.
-- Edit --
All down votes on my comments and upvotes on the sheep diarrhea responses here are from ableist anus wrinkles of people.
- Why are you late? Do you leave your house too late? Is the traffic bad? What's the reason.
  I'm never late, I always plan for things to go wrong and usually I'm too early and have some time to chill before something starts.
  
  It's sometimes called "time blindness" and it's not something I can control.
- No, I'm places on time. While waiting on your tardy ass isn't the problem, it's still problematic. Get your shit in a pile. Our time is finite and valuable, not a soul wants to spend it waiting on someone who basically lied about when and where they'll be.
  
  People have brains that work differently and they should not be shamed by people who refuse to grasp the idea that not everyone works like you do.
  https://www.healthline.com/health/time-blindness
  Did you not get the part that it's not a choice for me?
- I don't see how time blindness prevents you from setting an alarm.
  
  That's part of the problem. People assume an alarm—or some other '""simple"" solution—would solve everything. There's a fundamental lack of understanding, then, worsening the issue, people are judged based on that non-existent foundational comprehension that people don't always work the way you do.
  It's simply not up to us. We can try, and sometimes succeed, but it's simply not within our control.
- The poster is being sarcastic. She's got ADHD herself and is a very avid poster in the ADHD meme sub. The point of this post is that the guy in the screenshot is ignorant.