Meeting a friend
You are meeting a friend at 2pm at the park. It is a fifteen-minute walk. It is 1.45.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Always the last one
You are late for things fairly often. People have started to expect it.
What actually fixes it?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Start from when you must be there. Take off the journey. Take off getting ready. That is when you start.
The bit everybody forgets
People budget for the journey and not for finding shoes, filling a bottle, or saying goodbye. That is where the time goes.
Add ten minutes
Something always takes longer than you thought. Ten minutes covers most of it.
If you are going to be late
Say so as soon as you know, not when you arrive. People can work around a known delay.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Work It Backwards
Tap them in the order you would plan them.
You must be at a club at 4pm.
- 1Take off 20 minutes for the walk
- 2Take off 10 minutes for getting ready
- 3Take off 10 more, just in case
- 4So start at 3.20
- 5Be there at 4.00
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
You realize you will be fifteen minutes late. When do you tell them?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Plan one backwards
- Take something you have to be at this week.
- Work backwards: arrival, journey, getting ready, ten spare.
- Set an alarm for the start time, not the leaving time.
Why: An alarm for leaving is always too late. The start time is the one that matters.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Work backwards from when you must arrive.
- Count getting ready, not just the journey.
- Add ten minutes, and say early if you will be late.
For the grown-up
Lateness at this age is nearly always an estimation failure rather than a lack of respect. Children budget for the journey and have no model at all for preparation time.
Doing the backwards calculation out loud together a few times builds the habit. Simply announcing departure times does not, because it keeps the planning with you.
Giving them a real deadline they own — one they can miss, with a small consequence — teaches this faster than any number of reminders.