Commitment to Timeliness

Time is something we deal with every day and something we all believe that we understand well. Yet, do we truly understand the meaning of time? How time affects not only ourselves but also everyone around us? Have we ever stopped to think about the language that time speaks; because time does speak a language. So what does the language of time say?

Time is an aspect of life that we never get back, rather, it’s only forward looking, unless you somehow have built a time machine. If you have, let me know.

Regardless, the way we use our time says a great deal about who we are. For example, when we arrive late for work, to practice, or to meals, etc. We communicate something.

What we’re saying is that we don’t respect the time of others, even if we don’t mean to communicate this. It can be perceived as we don’t care about the person or people who took the time to employ us, on team together, or prepare a meal for us. In reality, we are stealing people’s time and all of us can agree that we don’t appreciate when our valuable time is wasted. As you can see, our misuse of our time and the time of others speaks a certain language.

The action of punctuality speaks a numerous amount of messages that include:

1) Arriving on time shows others that you’re a man or woman of your word.

2) It shows that you’re dependable, thus people can trust that you’ll be there and get the job done.

3) It builds your self-confidence.

4) It assures that you’re at your best.

5) It builds and reveals your discipline. It shows that you can set aside pleasure such as sleeping in more in order that you may do what you ought to do.

6) It shows your humility.

7) It shows your respect for others.

So, if you’re like me and are occasionally late to events, here are some practicals to help us break the cycle of tardiness.

1) General rule of thumb to keep in mind: If you’re not 10 minutes early you’re 10 minutes late. If you have to be somewhere at 8:00 pm get there at 7:50 pm. That is the goal!

2) Avoid the point of no return. Avoid the near occasion of falling into tardiness. I constantly find that my time watching Netflix or phone lounging on social media, etc. sometimes leads to me being late. I’m learning that I need to put my technology away and prioritize arriving on time.

3) There are going to be occasions where we try our best and still arrive late. In these cases, be merciful to yourself and apologize about your tardiness then sincerely try your best not to be late again.

Let’s do ourselves a favor and make punctuality a priority in our lives. In turn, we will love others as they desire to be loved by this one simple action.