What is the Difference Between 8:55 a.m. and 9:05 a.m.?
by Cynthia Hammer, MSW
Any child knows the difference is 10 minutes, but I’m asking for a more complex answer to a more complicated question: What’s the difference between being five minutes early and five minutes late? What is the difference between arriving at a staff meeting at 8:55 a.m. instead of 9:05 a.m.?
I had a coaching client, Ellen, who was always five minutes late for the weekly staff meeting. Actually, Ellen was five minutes late to work every day. To help her understand the impact being late had on her career and her self-image, I told her a story about Susie.
Susie knew as soon as she left the house that she would be late to work. She had such good intentions. Why, oh why, did she decide to put the laundry in the washer before leaving home? It took more than the few minutes she expected, and now she would be late when she might have been on time. The traffic was heavier than usual, and she couldn’t find a parking space for several minutes. Susie grabbed her stuff, jumped out of the car, and rushed into the building.
She couldn’t wait for the elevator and impulsively ran up three flights of stairs. At last, she was standing outside the door to the meeting, but she didn’t want to enter until she got her breath back.
When Susie entered the room, it felt as though all eyes turned to look at her. She felt judged. “What do you know?” they seemed to be saying. “It’s Susie, and she’s late again.” Darn! Because she has rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD), Susie knew their annoyed looks would haunt her all day. She couldn’t stop thinking, “They don’t like me. They think I am a nuisance and a bother. All my efforts to be kind and friendly don’t matter because they think I’m just a screw-up.”
The meeting always had coffee and doughnuts available. Susie counted on the snack to get her through the meeting as she hadn’t had breakfast, but it was too awkward to be late and to disrupt the meeting again by heading for the snack table. Susie looked around for a place to sit, and, unfortunately, the only open seat was on the far side of the room. Feeling self-conscious, Susie wormed her way across the room but dropped her pen and notebook on the way. She got more disgruntled looks from her co-workers, and she thought, “This day has already turned into a disaster. Why can’t I do better?”
She felt close to tears. She sat down and thought, “Focus on the meeting.” but telling herself to focus never had much impact. Feeling stressed and overwhelmed, Susie slumped in the chair and contemplated her many failures. Ellen related to Susie’s story and wanted to know how she could live a different story, a story where she was five minutes early to work.
Ellen achieved success by practicing many new strategies for getting places on time or even early.
Ellen loves planning her outfits for work, but when she does this in the morning, she spends too much time on the task. She has to find presentable items to wear, and some days there are slim pickings. With my guidance, Ellen ensured that every item in her closet was ready to wear. In the evening, she laid out the clothing she planned to wear the next day, and she put the items she wanted to bring with her to work by the exit door. Ellen then timed how long it took to get out of bed, to get dressed for work and have breakfast. Then she timed how long it took to drive to work, park the car, and get to her desk. She padded this time by ten minutes to allow for heavier than usual traffic or not easily finding a parking space.
By subtracting the time to get to work from when she wanted to be at her desk, Ellen knew when she needed to leave the house. (e.g. To arrive at her desk by 8:55 a.m. minus 35 minutes to get there, means she must leave home by 8:20 a.m.) Ellen subtracted how long it takes to dress and eat breakfast from when she must leave home (e.g. 8:20 a.m.-90 minutes). Ellen must get out of bed and start her morning routine by 6:50 a.m. She knows that to wake rested by 6:50 a.m. she must go to bed every night by 11:00 p.m.
Ellen felt overwhelmed at all the changes she needed to make, but we took it one step at a time. First, she timed her morning routine and her procedure for getting to work. Next, she focused on getting as much ready as was feasible the night before. Ellen learned not to interrupt her morning routine to do any extra tasks that popped into her mind. She had to focus on getting ready and leaving the house by 8:20 a.m.
It didn’t take long before Ellen was regularly arriving at work, five minutes early. She was proud of her success and even more surprised at the; improvement in her self-esteem and self-confidence. If she set her mind to do something and worked out the steps to achieve it, she could do it! What Ellen hadn’t considered, but which quickly became apparent, was being five minutes early had additional benefits.
She arrived at work calm and composed. She had time to enjoy a cup of coffee with her colleagues and find out what they planned to do over the weekend. She enjoyed this brief socializing time, and she became more familiar with her colleagues; she no longer felt they were judging her. She felt accepted.
So what is the difference between arriving at 8:55 a.m. and 9:05 a.m.? Ten minutes, but a lot more than that.