People Who Are Always Late

July 5, 2010

Interview with Diana Delonzor, author of the book Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged

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Mike Carruthers:
I’m sure you know people who are chronically late; it’s a huge problem in this country.

Diana Delonzor:
It's about 20% of the overall population and that's just the 20% that are late. The other 80% are the people that are driven crazy by the late people in their lives.
 

Diana DeLonzor, author of the book Never Be Late Again…

It affects the U.S. economy in that it costs our productivity about three billion dollars a year.

According to her research, Diana says, most chronically late people have been that way all their lives and they know they have a real problem.

It is an inconsiderate thing to be chronically late, however most chronically late people don't mean to be inconsiderate. They have difficulty with time management in general. In my research I found that late people tend to procrastinate more than the average person. And being late was a surprisingly difficult habit to overcome. I always tell timely peopl that telling a late person to just be on time is a little bit like telling a dieter just don't eat so much.

Late people usually have trouble grasping how long things take to do.

I've often found that late people seem to think that in ten minutes they can pick up the dry cleaning, change the alarm on the smoke detector, take out the garbage, and drive to work. And they have a very unrealistic view of time. One woman thought that she could get ready for work in twenty minutes. In actuality, when I had her time it, it took an hour.