always late

[uttara]

hi,

whenever i do any thing i am always late. I never do my work when the time is enough and when it is eleventh hour then my work begins . As a result i cant do my work as i have thought . This habit has always left me behind and many time left me embarassed.

i tried hard to improve it but i dont how other job seems me important to me before its too late.

Any solution ,so that i could live " on time " life............


uttara

[Shamou]

The only way that you can change a habit is to attach much pain to that habit... and attach pleasure to changing it...

If you attach things like: being lazy, inconsiderate, sloppy, nuthead etc... to being late... and attach intelligent, considerate, responsible etc to being on time... you will change pronto...

The best of luck to you... and don't be late with a response to this posts...
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[Shamou]

uttara... there is another thread on the same subject here...

You might want to check it...

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[Ilya]

Ok, we have two similar threads here, but they seem to deal with different aspects, so, I'll answer both.
Uttara, I'll start answering Shamou's quote that caught my eye, but I'll then seamlessly move to answering your original question. Bear with me for a while.

If you attach things like: being lazy, inconsiderate, sloppy, nuthead etc... to being late... and attach intelligent, considerate, responsible etc to being on time... you will change pronto...

Sorry, Shamou, but I strongly disagree with this advice. Your pain-pleasure model is interesting, but I thought it is deeper then this.
I wonder if you've had the same problem as uttara, or did you give it enough conscious thought. What you propose is again preaching and not teaching. Controlling this habit is a learnable skill. We should not just stop this behaviour, we have to tune it as I will discuss below.
In any case, this has nothing to do with laziness, sloppiness, being inconsiderate etc. In fact it is quite the opposite.

As a former procrastinator extraordinaire I've had to deal with this behavior for years. I still have "episodes" sometimes, but now it is not harmful anymore.

And I have to say, Shamou, that the thinking you are proposing is exactly what usually goes on in the mind of a person who is suffering from this habit. And guess what, it just reinforces this behavior!

It happens because of the structure of this phenomenon. Here and later I'll use the word procrastination, however, what we discuss is just one very special case of procrastination and should have it's own name. Oh, I have an idea. Since this behavior is often called "student's syndrome" I'll coin the verb "to studentinate"

You know, no one studentinates in order to fail. Everyone does it in order to do the work better. It's just the wrong belief, that waiting a little bit longer, thinking and collecting information will result in better performance.
This belief has some merit to it - the truly optimal way is to find the right balance between "sharpening the axe" and actually doing something.

When someone studentiates it means that he is facing a hard task. When we are facing the easy and boring tasks, we sometimes procrastinate too, but for different reasons - the task can wait and is not exciting.
Hard tasks lead not to boredom but to anxiety. Especially if the desire to do better crosses into the realm of perfectionism.

Still, any delays, will only make the hard task harder. The person feels it and enters the vicious cycle when every passing hour and then minute increases anxiety. At some point the "eleventh hour" this vicious cycle meets the balancing force. Usually it is the commitment to others. The impending pain from breaking the commitment creates another vicious cycle of anxiety that slowly overpowers the original fear of not doing the job well. At this moment the person springs into action.

Amazingly enough, this behavior does not lead to catastrophes as often as it should. One reason, that people who are waiting for the result have some reserves of their own. They usually request stuff early and do some padding. (Ironically, the reason they do padding is their own procrastination. )

The other reason, that most people are late from time to time (especially in the software development industries, but not necessarily). Being like others won't let one to stand from the crowd, but it won't ruin a career by itself. Especially if the end result is good enough.

And that's the third reason. The result of a frantic last moment work can be surprisingly good. Remember, that the initial motivation was to do one's best.
And although the execution is not ideal in the eyes of the person who does the job, it can still be very good in the eyes of the customer.

So, keeping all above in mind, to simply change the habit is unrealistic and suboptimal. We need to preserve the positive elements and optimize the negative ones.

Several approaches are useful for that. Uttara, this might be useful for you.

1. Fight perfectionism. Use external feedback as a criteria, not the internal ideals. If other people are happy with what you do for them, then it's good. You can do as good and then, if you want to, and have time left, overdeliver.
Currently the feedback can be shadowed by the problems caused by lateness, so you have to separate the feedback for content from the feedback for delivery.

2. When you are in a last minute mode - track your time. Know how long does it take what you do. You may be amazed, how efficient can you be. Note that timetracking can disrupt your state and make you even later then you usually are. Prepare for that when you do the exercise.
When you know how long things take, you can plan accordingly. You'll know that some tasks are not that long or that difficult as they seem. You'll know by how much exactly you are late. What is the time you spend really working and how much time you spend just worrying.

3. Learn to control your internal states. Recognize that studentination is the way to enter a stressful, but productive (and maybe creative) state. For example, I just can't write an original article unless I am in a certain state. But I don't need to wind myself up with procrastination anymore. When I need to write, I just enter the necessary state and off I go.
This requires practice. NLP anchoring can help if done well.

4. Note the effect the environment has on your productivity. Sometime we force ourselves into an all-nighter simply because there are too many distractions during the day. Waking up early may be a better idea in this case.

5. A separate point - Uttara, I've noticed that you use the word always in connection with your problem. Stop. I'm sure you are not always late with every single things that you do. Simply because most of the things we do don't have deadlines for them. You might have this behavior most of the times when facing a deadline, but this is a pretty special context, that has all the possibility to go haywire. Don't associate this behavior with your personality.
It's just a skill and hopefully my hints will help you to get better at it.

[uttara]

The only way that you can change a habit is to attach much pain to that habit... and attach pleasure to changing it...

If you attach things like: being lazy, inconsiderate, sloppy, nuthead etc... to being late... and attach intelligent, considerate, responsible etc to being on time... you will change pronto...

Well i am getting the point but to my experience when i was frustrated and used these short of words the result was i would get more pain and lowered self esteem. i think it was due to i had attched these words with my self and its me who is late. "

but thankyou and i will try this once again consciously.

[hightea]

Hello, One way to overcome lateness is to prioritize your daily events. Get all the things that must be done completed right away. All of the other items on your list can wait till later. Ask yourself these questions, Can those dishes wait?...What will the people waiting for me think if I am late? (that shows people that you don't value their time, never mind your own )... How can I empower myself to change and look at things in my differently?...The last question to ask yourself in the mirrow, Is this the lifestyle I want?
Changing yourself is all part of personal development. If you keep doing the same thing today, I can guarantee you that tomorrow you will get the same results as you did today. You have to change your mode of thinking. Make yourself say "Those dishes can wait! Today I WILL be on time and nothing will stop me!" Try that a few times and before long you (and others) will notice you've changed and are no longer late!
Good Luck!