Way back in the annals of deep time, my husband and I attended a marriage preparation course. I would recommend this course to anyone thinking of getting married, because it covered so many things that neither of us had thought about: who would plan holidays, who would mow the lawn, who would be in charge of finances, and so on.

One of the subjects covered was the things that cause dissent within a marriage. Some were obvious, like disagreements about the finances, or methods of disciplining the children, but there were some that were more obscure. One of these was timekeeping.

“In every marriage,” said the leader, “there are two types of people. When catching a train, there is one person who likes to be in time to catch the one before, and there is one person who likes to give the train a sporting chance.”

I used to be the latter kind of person. Over the past twenty-five years, however, I have tried to become better at timekeeping.

Twenty-five years ago, on a personal development course, the instructor divided us up into two groups – those who were always punctual and those who were always late. It was about 50/50. Each person who was always on time had to take on a person who was always late and teach them how to be on time.

So, I learned the art of “padding.” If I had a meeting thirty minutes away, I would leave thirty minutes. Except, as my new friend explained to me, I needed time to tidy my desk, time to get out the documents I would need for the meeting, time to say goodbye to my team and deal with the “Just before you go…” questions, time to get to my car, time to drive to the meeting – thirty minutes, time to allow for hold-ups, time to find a parking space, time to find out where the meeting was to be held and time to walk to that room. When we added up all that extra time, I worked out that I needed to allow fifty minutes to get to that meeting on time without being stressed.

I have a friend who says she is rarely on time, but she is always in time. I now prefer to allow lots of time to get to where I’m going. I arrive at airports three hours ahead of my flight, and at train stations at least twenty minutes before my train gets in. I have another friend who says that to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late and to be late is never!

There are times, however, when it is simply rude to be early, as – for instance – arriving at someone’s house for coffee fifteen minutes before the arranged time. Your host is probably still preparing for your visit.

Are you someone who avoids stress by being on time, or do you prefer the adrenaline rush of trying to beat the clock?

Mary

A Moodscope member