Never Too Late By Three Days Grace

If people come late for school or work by 5 minutes, it is excusable. However, many of my friends are always late and awfully late. I live much further than them but they live much closer and yet they're late. So, here's my guide on being punctual.

Set a buffer time for yourself. If you're supposed to arrive at 8, please aim to arrive at least 10 minutes before. Shit always happens and that 10 minutes can just fly by. Sometimes you might just miss the bus, need to go to the toilet & sometimes there's a traffic jam.

Get enough sleep. This is one of the things that will make you NEVER TOO LATE. The recommended amount of sleep for almost everybody is 8 hours. You need more sleep if you are younger & lesser if you are older. Most of the times we are able to wake up even though we are still sleepy, but there'll be a greater tendency to off our alarm and straight away go back to sleep. This also happens to some of us even when our alarm is on snooze mode. Some find it hard to sleep early and this might be because you've slept in the afternoon or you woke up late.  If you still cannot wake up, then you have discipline problems.

Get the estimated travelling time correct. It is wrong to assume that our estimated travelling time based on a single travel. You need to at least travel 5 times and average all of those and that's how you get your estimated travelling time.

You must prepare your things the day before and not before you leave your house. Even though this saves you less than 5 minutes, you might miss the bus due to this. The more important reason though is so that you do not forget to bring your things because we are more careless when we are in a rush.

Finding the fastest route also saves you time. The most fundamental is finding the fastest public transport or if you have a car or motorcycle, find the fastest route. The fastest route might not necessarily be the shortest route as traffic has to be accounted for. Traffic also changes with time & day and you must also take note of that.  On the other hand, I have taken things to the next level. I always walk fast before reaching my bus stop even though I do not know if the bus is coming because there’s always a probability that I might just miss the bus if I walk instead & then I can rest in the bus. Going on a more extreme level, I utilise the idea of Pythagoras Theorem.  If the walking distance is shorter by cutting across and not walking on the pavement, I simply walk on the grass. I call it Pythagoras Theorem because there’s always one side of the triangle that’s shorter than both sides combined.

When you wake up, there is an organized way of things getting done before going to work. You should know immediately what to do after showering, dressing up or eating and there's no rests in between. I take it to the next level and multi-task, for example, eating while getting dressed.

If you can do some things at your work place or school then do it there instead. Estimate the time needed for doing your work and arrive that early at your workplace/school so that you can do it there instead. Note though that you should not have a lot of things to do over there as you might not have enough time to complete it or you still need more sleep.

Lastly, if you know you’re going to be late, inform that person who’s expecting you and tell him/her/them where you currently are and/or your estimated arrival time. Nothing makes me more irritated when a person replies, I'm on my way.