Good morning, John. It's a Friday, and we've got some different perspectives on punctuality. I get to the airport...
like a half hour before the flight takes off.
I mean, it's Missoula, and I'm usually checked in beforehand anyway
and I never check a bag because I change my pants like once a week.
That might be too much information, it might be a pro tip. I'm not sure. But in 10 years of doing it this way
I've never missed a flight. I have however been late for a lot of things. I am a chronically late person. Sometimes
I'm just trying to get that last thing done before I go out the door
or I just totally spaced and forgot the thing existed.
And I always underestimate how long something is going to take. I don't like this about myself.
I understand that me showing up late is seen as a sign of disrespect by people and it is! It is disrespectful.
I feel terrible about that because I really respect the people I work with and I value them tremendously
but I'm not showing it. This has gotten worse with the book
which has a lot of deadlines and a lot of meetings and a lot of
signing and signing and signing and signing and signing...yeah. And also ever since Orin was born,
I've just had to do a better job of implementing the strategies that I have developed over the last
20 years of being someone who is
chronically late. And here are seven of the most important things that I as a chronically late person do to not be that person as much.
1. I let people know when I'm going to be late
and I let them know by how much I'm going to be late
and I do not lie about that. If I'm gonna be 10 minutes late
I don't engage in some sort of miraculous wishful thinking and think "maybe I will get there in five minutes,
so I'll say I'm gonna be five minutes late because it'll make it a little less bad right in the moment" and then stretch the bad
feeling out a little bit. No, this is terrible. Never do this!
2. Think of the thing that's gonna happen not as the time at which it's going to happen, but as the amount of time
until it's going to happen. My deeply irrational brain sees 11:49 and 11:50 as two very different times
But it understands that 11 minutes from now is very similar to 10 minutes from now.
My phone actually tells me how many minutes something is away rather than at what time it will happen.
3. If it's gonna take six minutes to get somewhere, I need to be driving out of the driveway with six minutes left, not standing up from my desk to go find my computer
and wonder where my keys are and then kiss my baby
goodbye, so that I get in the car and the meeting has already started.
All those things are gonna happen every time. I need to plan for them.
4. Multiple alarms. I have two alarms that go off for every event: one a half an hour before the event and one
two minutes before the event. This is especially helpful for things like conference calls because I don't have to go anywhere,
I don't have to stand up from my desk. And if a half an hour passes between when I get reminded
And when the call is I'm gonna be deep...
researching salt mining techniques or something by the time the conference call runs around. I know this about myself
so I have that two-minute warning.
I just get on the conference call which is maybe number 5. Sometimes
I get on the conference call five, even ten minutes before that call starts and just listen to that dope music and do other stuff
so that I'm not late when other people show up.
6. Here's a thing about myself: I like to not waste time, and this is part of the problem.
And I feel like if I get someplace early that will be a waste of time.
But I have mentally shifted myself to realize that if I get someplace early
something interesting and useful is going to happen at that place in the same way that it's happening at my desk if I'm not leaving early.
And finally number 7, my most important tip: every time you are late, get out your little notes-taking app, whatever it is,
And write down why it happened.
Diagnose yourself. Understand yourself. Figure this out.
So that is both advice and an apology to everyone including you John.
I'm sorry that I'm late all the time, and I'll see you on Tuesday.
And yes, signed editions of 'An Absolutely Remarkable Thing' are going to be a thing. Limited number, not all pre-orders will be signed.
But they are currently available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million.
They will also be available at your local bookstore when the book comes out, but only in the US and Canada.
That's just how it works, I'm sorry. And if you already ordered, don't worry,
the book hasn't shipped yet
so you can very easily go in and cancel it and order the signed edition which is a separate thing on those websites.
There's links at hankgreen.com.