Every second counts. That is how valuable time is. Being punctual is a part of improving our personality. Being punctual reflects us as someone who is responsible and trustworthy. Being punctual helps us value our time but how exactly are we going to become one. It’s not an immediate act. There are steps to follow. Let’s take one step at a time. Here are some steps to help us make our way towards punctuality and make our time more valuable.

1. Acknowledge your Kryptonite. “YOU are not punctual”. Unless you admit to yourself your weakness, you cannot step up and reach your goal.

2. Be Time-Conscious. It’s not really that necessary that you buy new Rolex or Timex. The clock on your phone is enough. Always wear your watch and make sure that it gives you an accurate time.

3. Rise and Shine Sleepyhead. Wake up when you are supposed to wake up. The usual picture is, when the alarm rings, you get out of bed and throw your alarm clock to the trash bin. Poor thing! It’s not its fault that it rang. You set it up, you throw yourself! Kidding! No. Discipline yourself and follow your schedule. Don’t be tempted by your soft pillows and your warm blankets. They won’t help you reach your goal. What goal? PUNCTUALITY.

4. 15 Minute Flash. Be 15 minutes early to everything. Try as hard as you can to get or reach to something 15 minutes early. People will truly respect you for that.

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5. Watch yourself. Observe and take note of your daily activities and determine where do you spend much of your time. This will help you minimize those activities and terminate or stop those activities that are not really that useful.

6. Stick Notes helps. Make a note where you should be in a time. Always carry with you your planner. Stick notes on your wall, in your fridge or even on your door walls so you’ll be reminded everytime.

7.Keep Organized. Keep all your stuffed properly arranged. You don’t want to spend your time looking for your misplaced ballpen. Do you?

8. Plan ahead. Planning is a must. Through planning, you will be able to determine and identify those activities that you are about to do in the future.

9. Go to sleep on time. Stop staying up all night just checking out you Facebook account. Your body is not a machine. You don’t want to slow down, do you? Have enough time of rest so you have a full load of energy for the next.

These are all for now. Remember, if you practice it all the time, it’ll become a habit and what’s next could be you being responsible, good mannered and Punctual.

2. “Are all the men in this company rich? I need to know because my kids need a dad. The last one just got 10 years for public indecency.”

3. “Are you really the director of this company? You don’t look rich enough.”

4. “I see you have an open plan office. I’m not really comfortable with that. I like to have some privacy while I’m conducting my personal phone calls.”

5. “So what kind of freebies will I get from working here? What? None? You should have put that in the job advertisement. I never would have applied had I known that.”

6. “Just to let you know, punctuality isn’t my forte.”

7. When asked, “Why did you leave your last job?” you reply, “They didn’t have anything left worth stealing. On the bright side, I’ve made a killing on ebay selling office supplies and even water coolers.”

8. “I bought this blouse especially for this interview. It’s a little on the small side though, so please do tell me if my boobs fall out.”

9. “You’re really working that toupee. I just want to throw you to the ground, growl and hump your head.”

10. “Guess what colour underwear I’m wearing. Actually, it’s a trick question. I’m not wearing any.”

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I have seen men and women in position of authority or the so-called leaders in workplaces, who are not trusted, respected or held in high esteem by their colleagues or employees. Once when I went to meet the head of a small organisation at 10 AM, where about 20 staff were working, I was told by an employee that the boss was not available. I asked him again if he was on leave or out of station. He said, ‘I don’t know.’ On further enquiry with his colleague I learnt that his boss used to come to office at irregular timings.

The above is an example of lack of self-discipline on the part of a leader. As a leader of the organisation, he should have stuck to the office timings himself and acted as a role model to others. Punctuality is no doubt one of the distinguishing traits of a leader. A leader should never send a wrong message to his subordinates by his actions, for actions speak louder than words.

Leaders should have a broad vision. They should evaluate things and people in proper perspective. They should never exaggerate trivial things and punish employees for issues that have little impact on the organisation. At the same time, they should not let go an employee unpunished for things like sexual harassment of a female colleague or misappropriation of funds, even when his contribution to the organisation in the past has been exemplary.

A leader should be knowledgeable, have expertise in his domain and should be a voracious reader to keep himself up-to-date in the area of his operations. If he lacks knowledge in his chosen field, he cannot command respect of his followers who generally look to him for guidance. More than that, the leader would be ill-equipped to find solutions to the complex problems faced in the workplace, like quality issues in a product manufacturing company.

Lack of delegation on the part of a leader erodes his image. When tasks of routine nature or sometimes important ones are not delegated to a subordinate, it means that there is an element of secrecy about his dealings. It may pertain to a deal with another company or with the supplier of a raw material to the company. Transparency in the workplace is a must as the leader and his followers are committed to a common goal like increasing the productivity of the company. It is necessary that the employee who has to follow up with the supplier at a later date has to be involved in the purchase process from the beginning of the deal itself. If the leader does not trust his subordinates, it is quite likely that the subordinates too will have no trust in their leader.

A leader should have good communication skills. If he lacks this, he may not be good at giving quality instructions to his subordinates for completion of a task. Leader should give specific guidelines to his subordinate to do a task so that he (the subordinate)  need not have to seek further clarifications from his boss at frequent intervals later, thus wasting his and his superior’s time. While giving detailed instructions to a subordinate, get feedback from the subordinate at each stage of the discussion to confirm if the process or methodology of a task has been properly understood by his subordinate. This will ensure successful completion of the task.

Ideally, a leader should share the vision of his company, dreams, short-term and long-term goals with his followers quite often. Open communication with employees and sharing of ideas and aspirations vis-a-vis the company would always be appreciated by the employees, which will help them in directing their energies to achieving the goals of the organisation.

Ensuring fair play in one’s dealings and in the workplace is one of the remarkable leadership traits. A leader should never discriminate between employees. He should show the same consideration to all his employees when it comes to giving of incentives or rewards for the good work done by them. This holds good for meting out punishment to the wrongdoers as well. For committing a particular offence, similar punishment should be meted out to all without bias. You cannot cut two increments of salary for one person and four increments for another for the same offence. This will erode the leader’s credibility. A leader should always maintain high standards of integrity in his dealings with employees.

Leaders should never be selfish in their approach to reducing company’s expenditure or maximising company’s profit. Sometime back a CEO of a large organisation arranged the marriage of his daughter in a Star hotel. He did not bother either to invite his employees to the wedding or arrange to distribute a small packet of sweets to his employees at their workplace on that day.  The elite of the society were served with a lavish lunch at the hotel but not the employees who contributed to the company’s profit. A small gesture on the part of the CEO would have created a lot of goodwill for him if only he had spent an infinitesimal fraction of his company’s profits running into thousands of crores.

In sum, leaders should always try to uphold the dignity of their position and image of their organisation by displaying some of the above traits.

I have a friend, who will always late, 30 minutes and over each time she makes promises. At first, I cannot tolerate that, but ironically eventually she has become my best friend. As much as I cannot tolerate her terrible time management skill, there are other of her attitudes that I’m amazed at.

I remember because I unable to tolearate of her bad time management skill, on her birthday, I gave her birthday present, a nice painting board, with a sentence written on it, ‘ time is gold’. But that didn’t work, as she didn’t see it as an sarcastic advice, because she do not say anything or change her habit. L.

But it kind getting to my nerve when I always has this problem with other people. Let say when se promise at 8.30am, turn out that person will be late 15 minutes and over. But when it times to stop, everybody want it to be as fast as could and usually in here, punctuality is 99.999% in work. How ironic is that?

Time is gold. I am lucky as my father has taught me to be early , not punctual. He always early and as he showed me this habit since I was small, I used to it. And it surprised many people who saw my attitude. Saying when I’m the one who makes promises, they need to punctual. But if it them, usually 10-20 minutes late.

Time cannot be retrieve back, and there are so many things that can be achieved in that time. Why not many people can see that? One or two minutes can make so many differences and yet, many of us take this as granted.

I know Japanese people are known to be people who are very good in their punctuality and I dare says, it also contributing factors for their success even after being bombed during world war two.

It getting on my nerve when that person is late, and yet they do nothing about it, make it as if nothing wrong to be late. But sometimes, when you really used to this kind of person, you do not bother to care anymore.

Even though that friend of mine has terrible skill in her time management, but she cannot tolerate when  other people do the same to her. When you know you are going to somewhere and you are not familiar with that place, isn’t a good idea to go there early? Well, we do can estimate roughly how many minutes or hour for us to arrive there, but there are many things could happen during the journey, traffic jam, toilet thing, so it is a good idea to start early. So, when you late, you know whose fault is it, instead of blaming to all the excuses that you can find. That is my friend story. She also able to estimate how minutes she could arrive her work on time, and when even a slight problem occur, she could blame on that instead of herself.

Have you meet this kind of person? Hmmm, apparently me, most of the time.

Gandalf said, “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” Unfortunately, I am not a wizard, so I am held to human standards of punctuality.

I have spent much time over the last thirty or forty years pondering this character flaw of mine. I have always seen it as a character flaw. I don’t want to be late. I don’t want to keep people waiting. I don’t see myself as more important than everyone else, and I don’t expect that leaders of study groups or meetings should wait until I show up to get started, unless I am the leader – in which case I feel very ashamed of myself if I am late.

I used to think that I was just one of those people who can’t be on time, no matter how hard I tried, and I did try hard. I was born right on my mother’s due date, so I used to say, “I was on time for my birth, but I’ve been late for everything else since then.” I thought that everyone else just had some genetic component for punctuality that I was missing.

The first time someone really challenged me on my tardy ways was in my first year of teaching. I was always late for the staff prayer meetings that we had every morning. My principal told me, “You wouldn’t put up with a student being late every day, so why should it be okay for you to be late?” I started to really do some deep soul searching to figure out why I was always late and what I could do to change.

Once I stopped making excuses for myself , and started focusing on what I could do to remedy this character flaw, I discovered that there were indeed some flaws in my thinking; and for the first time in my life I started to believe that I could change.

I started getting realistic about how long it takes to accomplish tasks and how much time I really need. I used to calculate driving time by how long it took to drive from my driveway to the parking lot of my destination. So when I was teaching, for example, the drive took twelve minutes – if the road was dry, and if I didn’t have to stop for any trains, and if I didn’t get stuck behind a slow moving farm truck, or some other delay. I would attempt to leave home twelve minutes before the scheduled meeting time. But even if I did manage to leave home with time for the twelve minute drive, I was still late.

They say that if you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got. I had to change how I calculated punctuality. I had to include the time it took to park, walk to the building, hang up my coat, get a cup of coffee, and walk to the staff room. It sounds so reasonable, but it truly was an epiphany for me to realize that I was not taking those things into account.

I started to allow margins in my schedule. I took to heart (finally!) the wisdom that says being on time requires getting to a place five minutes before the scheduled starting time. I stopped blaming the trains and the farm trucks for my tardiness. I stopped basing my schedule on prime conditions and I started to base my schedule on realistic conditions. If there is something like an accident on the road, especially if I am in the accident, then that is a reasonable excuse. Especially if the 911 operator is kind enough to make the call to let them know that I will be very late. (another story for another day)

Punctuality is still a struggle for me, even more so now with Parkinson’s. But one of the perks of having a nasty disease is that now I really do have reasons instead of excuses for being late or absent. I don’t recommend that you try this method.

Then, life in this country is more organised, people are much more tied by work than you may realise. Busy people have complex timetables. If you are invited for a meeting from half-past ten to eleven, expect to leave at eleven – unless your host presses you to stay. It’s wiser not to launch into another long story as the Englishman opposite shuffles his papers, or begins to wriggle in his chair.

Most English people get up and go to bed earlier than you do. (Americans, by the way, get up even earlier and go to bed even earlier.) So, expect to be up and around and working by 9 a.m., and nobody will be surprised if you are washing yourself around 7 a.m. On the other hand, don’t try to telephone acquaintances after 10 p.m. unless you know them well. Some people don’t mind being phoned at midnight, but they are very rare. Good luck!

Step 1:  Don’t Gossip-  Everyone loves to stay in the latest circle: It is no secret.  However, the average gossiper is often one of the first to be laid off in a time of unnecessary personnel.    Reasons may include the gossiped being close to the employer, or the gossiper being a common worker disliked by everyone else.   

Step 2:  Be careful with messaging- IM. Email. Texting.  Yes, it’s the new hit.  However, people can misinterpret these messages.  The best way to have a conversation is via a video chat or by face to face.   If you are using text to communicate, make sure your friendly tone is apparent.   This does not mean spamming your message with hundreds of smiley faces.  Just one or two will do.   

Step 3:  Be there on time, everyday-  Punctuality and Attendance are some of the most crucial components required in order to maintain your job.  With the employers squeezing all of their employees for every bit of their salary, it is better to be the worker who works the entire day and is not late.   

Step 4:  Kindness and Helpfulness- With the same amount (perhaps more) of work, and a smaller amount of workers, stress is bound to increase.   Having a smile and helping others (after you finish your work, of course) is a strong way to maintain your job.  The employer is more likely to lay off a person who waits for their job to finish and is out the door the second the clock hits the end of their shift, compared to an honest, helpful employee.

Step 5:  Never complain-  You never know who might hear your rants.  Always remember, there are thousands on the streets waiting for an opportunity at the job you have.   Always be thankful for your job.

Well…thats about it! Good Luck holding your jobs!

Disclaimer: The author takes no responsibility if the result is not satisfactory.

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr

Let’s have a look into the few of the very common public displays of uncivic sense one will encounter on every street in India.

• You got to watch where you walk because you may just step on someone’s spew. Yes, spitting and nose blowing just about anywhere are definitely on top of the list.

• I, once, had the unpleasant experience of arguing with a lady, carrying her baby, walking on a slow-moving-traffic road when she should’ve been on the footpath. Why walk on the road when there’s a sidewalk man?!

• Can you blame the citizens if the local authorities did not make provisions of trash cans? Well, I guess you can if garbage is still thrown out of moving vehicles & spewn around carelessly letting stray dogs & disease breeders on it.

• India boasts of mathematical geniuses & yet we fail to realise the value of the numbers on those things we call “clocks” & “wristwatches”. Time sense, punctuality, etc. are a rarity in India & citizens who believe being on time are laughed at.

• I salute Cyrus Broacha (MTV India VJ) for running with his cameraman towards people found urinating in public places & actually have the courage to ask “Aap yahan kya kar rahe ho?” (Hindi – What are you doing here?).

• Hats off to Bangalore for being able to (almost) overcome the problem of unwanted and vulgar graffiti by painting the walls with its beautiful culture. This is probably (to my awareness) the only city which learnt that weak warnings like “Do not stick bills” do not really work.

• Tell me, at how many public counters (except, maybe at supermarkets/airports) do we see a handful of people standing decently in a queue … oops … not the right word … in a group? It’s a mad rush out there & a tourist would probably dread going in there to get a ticket. People pushing … men taking advantage & women feeling uncomfortable, which brings us to the next point.

• Guess what!? The country’s name that’s read in the first line when you search for eve teasing on Wikipedia is India — how bad is that? India’s ever-growing population just breeds more eve teasers among hooligans, uncouths & the like. It’s a scene a lady can’t avoid no matter how conservative she is. I ask why?

• Another unpleasant encounter in a public bus … requested a man to vacate a seat he had occupied that was reserved for ladies & he had the audacity to yell, “So what if it’s for ladies? Just because it says ‘reserved for ladies’ you want to sit here?” The conductor had to push him out of the seat. It’s sad to see people having total disregard to government-allocated reservations.

• Please do not disagree when I say that you can easily walk through an elephant stampede if you have taken the Road Crossing in India 101 class. Just go with the flow is the mantra baby!

• And the last one is my favourite … a three-lane road magically turns into a five- or six-lane one!

I do not have the slightest doubt that my very patriotic fellow citizens will find it difficult to take in all of the above but, in simple terms, a fact is a fact – for how long can you cover it?

Here are some basic tips how to prepare for an interview:

1. Punctuality: the candidate must appear the interview spot at least half an hour before the time of the interview. It creates a good impression and if he is in time he can be more relaxed and confident.
2. Appearance: A first impression is largely formed by a candidate’s appearance before he begins to speak. He should posses a smart and pleasant appearance. His clothes should be neither too casual nor too formal. They must be clean and ironed. His shoes should be polished and tidy. If talk about a female candidate then she should wear minimum jewellery. Heavy perfumes or colognes should be avoided.
3. Body language: Stooping shoulders and rounded back are placatory signals and indicates a dangerous lack of confidence. The candidate should walk into the room with his back straight and maintain the posture while sitting down. Before sitting down he should ask for the interviewers permission like “May I sit down?”. He should shake hands with a firm grip maintaining eye contact with a smile.

Don’ts: He should not loll in the chair in a relaxed way or put his hands on the pocket. Crossing arms, placing hands or fingers over his mouth should be avoided. He should never put forward his hands to shake first unless the interviewer does.

1. Communication skill: Good communication includes both content and delivery. Delivery refers to tone of voice, choice of words and speaking style. He can make a good impression if he modulates the pitch of his voice.
2. Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm comes from the energetic way the candidate put forward his ideas. He should maintain a cheerful and pleasant countenance.
3. Listening skill: The candidate should listen carefully to the interviewer, that pleases the interviewer and also generates a positive feeling towards the candidate. The candidate should not interrupt the interviewer while he speaks.
4. Honesty: The candidate should be honest and always better not to bluff the interviewer.
5. Maintain a balance: The candidate should keep his answers informative and not too lengthy.

Points to remember:

1. Walk smartly and cheerfully into the interview room.
2. Shake hands firmly.
3. Maintain eye contact with the interviewer.
4. Be attentive.
5. Modulate your voice while reply to questions so that it is audible to everyone.

I have heard it said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result next time.

Here is an example: I have a bit of a punctuality problem (Pause here to wait for Hubby to finish laughing). 

Like most people, I know with some degree of accuracy how long it takes to get myself ready in the morning. With each job I have had, or whatever school I have attended, I also knew how long it would take to walk or drive to get to school or work. However, when I would calculate the time to get ready and add the transportation time, and set my alarm clock to allow for this much time, I was always late. I could not comprehend the problem, nor could I devise a solution.

For the first 23 years of my life, I allowed myself the delusion that I was just “one of those people who can’t be on time for anything.” I had been on time for my birth – right on my mother’s due date, but I had been late for everything since then.

Now, I could just blame my problem on my lack of mathematical skills. When calculating how long I needed for my morning routine, I usually neglected to factor in the snooze alarm component of the equation. Neither did I consider the time spent waiting for the bathroom as part of my morning routine, since that was not my fault.

My transportation time was based on how long it would take if the roads were in good condition (I live in Canada – where this can change from day to day), if all of the lights were green, and there were no trains to stop for, and no slow farm equipment to get stuck behind. I also based this calculation on the actual driving time from my garage to the parking lot at work. I failed to take into account the time it would take to find a parking spot, walk from the car to the building, hang up my jacket and change my boots (Canada, remember?) for indoor shoes, get a cup of coffee, and walk to the first place I would need to be.

I have always wanted to be on time, and I have always been apologetic to those whom I have kept waiting for me. I think that I may have viewed “Punctuality challenged” as a mental illness for which there was no cure.

When I started teaching, my principal seemed to think that punctuality was more of a character issue than a mental illness. He pointed out flaws in my logic. He told me to hold myself to the same standards that I expected of my students – I expected them to be on time, but I did not apply this standard to myself. After all, I was always on time for class; I was only late for the staff devotional meeting that we had every morning.

At 23 years of age, I finally learned the secret to punctuality: margins. Margins are the “cushion minutes” that need to be added to the length of time I think something ought to take. At last, I accepted the reality that I am not capable of getting myself ready in one hour; I need one and a half hours. I also learned a bit about probability statistics: if I have three sets of railroad tracks to cross on my way to school, the odds of having to wait for a train at least at one of them was a fair bit higher than 0%. I also started taking the parking time into consideration, as well as the time it took me to hang up my coat, change my footwear, get my coffee, and walk to the staffroom. And I am pleased to announce that by my fifth (and final) year of teaching there, I was finally showing up on time more often than not.