Why Are Some People Always Just A Hair Behind?
Last updated Saturday, January 28, 2006 9:07 PM CST in Living
By Debbie Cafazzo
Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune
The scene: Grandma's kitchen.
The players: Hungry kids, fidgety adults and Grandma, trying desperately to smile through her clenched teeth.
The problem: The in-laws. Late again for another family dinner.
The burning question: Why are some people always late?
"Some people are perpetually tardy because they don't have a good sense of time, or try to squeeze too much into the time they have available," said psychologist Karen Sherman, who specializes in relationship and lifestyle issues. "Others are late because it's a passive-aggressive way to be in control."
In other words, the show can't go on until the great late ones make their big entrance.
Michael Fritsch, the Austin, Texas-based founder of GizmoPhd.com, which promises "better living through technology," divided tardy people into two categories.
• The Unaware: They don't keep track of time and aren't well-organized. They say things like, "I didn't know what time it was" or "I completely forgot about that appointment."
• The Overbooked: They know what time it is and might be well-organized. They simply try to do too much. They say things like, "My 10 o'clock ran over" or "That errand took longer than I expected."
Still others, like Robert Moore, a Florida management consultant and author of "Turning Good People Into Top Talent," said certain personality types tend to lose track of time.
"Those who prefer interacting with people over task achievement tend to be more careless about time management," he said.
Whatever the cause, being fashionably late isn't really fashionable. It's a habit -- a habit that experts say a person can unlearn.
But they don't pretend it will be easy.
Sherman called the habit of procrastination "a soft addiction" that often stems from fear of not measuring up. A person puts off what he knows he has to do because he's afraid the final results won't be good enough.
Fritsch said gadgets can be both a blessing and a curse for the time-challenged.
Some mistakenly become enamored of technology for technology's sake. Spending hours tinkering with a piece of new software that dials the phone, for example, isn't a productive use of time.
One basic electronic tool that Fritsch recommended is the PDA (personal digital assistant) or the new "smart" phones. Both are portable devices with timekeeping and calendar functions, as well as electronic storage for phone numbers.
But Fritsch added a note of caution: "Make sure you synchronize your PDA with your computer," and keep both up to date.
Even though most people are trying to do more with less, some said they might do themselves a favor by scaling back.
Michael Ray Smith, chairman of the mass-communications department at Campbell University in North Carolina, called for rediscovering the margins in life -- margins like the white space one used to find at the top of the lined paper of his school days.
"Most of us are trying to do too much, so we fill the front and back of the page with activities and then use the margins, meaning nothing is left," Smith said.
His advice: "Put the white space back into your life. Leave some margins."
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