Being late. I grew up around folks who are habitually late. Yet, I have also spoken with ADHD folks about their time management and being late and found many similarities. Therefore, It's hard to tell what was learned behavior or ADHD. However, what prompted me to make a change was after several of my friends expressed how my being late made them feel as if I had no respect for them.
Here's how I changed my perception, and routine and stopped being late:
🪵 Logged My Time
I separated tasks of the day by morning, afternoon, evening, and late night. I wrote everything I did for seven days, from morning to night, and how long it took.
I then set a goal to reduce time spent on my morning routine. I bucketed tasks by type and time, including categories under 10mins and over 10mins. For any task under 10mins, my new goal was to get it down to 2-5, and for any task over 10mins, I wanted to reduce it to 5-7mins.
⏰ Visualize Time
I view time by the hour and tasks in 15minute blocks. I planned and visualized areas of my day using Figjam. Then for the first 30ish days, I transferred these items to my calendar + alarm until my routine came naturally. This helps me to align my perception of time.
🚿Getting Ready
The night before, I won't sleep without making sure all my shower items are in my "get ready travel bag." I'm not particularly eager to keep items like my toothbrush and face towel in the bathroom. So I have the bag with my toothbrush, toothpaste, scrubbing glove, soap, and face wash. This assures Ian never disheveled looking around for my items.
💁🏾♀️ Hair
I kept my hair straight for a while because it was low maintenance. However, this was damaging to my hair. Since then, I've found a minimalist system that allows me to wear my naturally curly hair and requires little maintenance. This helped reduce doing my hair in the morning from roughly 15minutes to just 3-5.
💄 Makeup
I thankfully used to work in IT at a makeup company, so I learned to do a full face natural look in under 5 minutes.
These were insights into the different areas of my routine, starting with showering, hair, and makeup; in part two, I'll share the remaining areas I fixed to help me stop being late.
