I, Lydia, hereby state that I am a perpetually late person.

Phew, I feel better already! I hate being late, but it feels like I always am. If it’s south of 635, the odds of me being on time are lower than getting struck by lightning on the way, or better yet, winning the lottery. It’s terrible. I mean, really. I’m turning 25 here pretty soon, surely I can’t be a quarter of a century old and be that person who is always late. It’s nonsense.

What happens is. I’ll say it takes 15 minutes to get somewhere (but secretly know it takes 20) and I’ll get all ready and realize I have an extra 10 minutes. So I’ll start doing something else and before I know it 15 minutes has gone by, I can’t find my keys and by the time I get into my car I’m already 5 minutes late. It’s puh-thetic. And then sometimes I Just assume the people or person that I’m meeting will also be a little late, so I assume that gives me an extra 5 minutes. It’s really quite silly. So I’m changing it.

I read this article from Fast Company called 4 Habits of Punctual People. They say these mysterious punctual people are comfortable with downtime (which I do love…but prefer to have it at home), they’re organized (I like to think that I am, except when it comes to my keys and phone, I swear they have a life of their own), they give themselves buffer time (yeah….I don’t do this), and their realistic thinkers (touché). And get this, they leave early IN CASE there is traffic. Who woulda thunk. You mean, traffic is something to be planned for? And not my go-to excuse for being tardy? World rocked.

So I’m going to make more efforts to be one of these mysterious punctual people. To give myself buffer time. Put my keys in the same place. Be more realistic. And increase my Instagram follower collection so I have something to do when I’m early. Like my sixth grade band teacher used to say, to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late. Although I believe he went on to work for a rival school and therefore should be blacklisted, he had a point. Gah.