By Thapelo Romeo Mosebo
Arriving late at work can determine your future at a company. It can lead to multiple or few warnings, rehabilitation camps and lastly, dismissal! Late coming started centuries (or at least thousands of years) ago, but for you it started as early as when you missed your bus to school, arrived late for class or when you arrived when the Pastor was already giving a sermon at church. A wise man once said, “It’s better late than never” but I believe that never late is better!
1. Prepare your clothing a night before.
I was at first the “always late” kid at school until I was taught that
preparing my uniform late at night will help me. That can range from
ironing your shirt, pants etc. to polishing your shoes. Always plan your meals so that you aren’t dithering about trying to find milk for your cereal in the darkest hour of dawn. This
worked wonders for me and I still thank my parents for that.
2. Sleep early.
It said that SIFTR or, should I break it down for you? S-Sleep, I-Is, F-For, T-The, R-Rich. The opposite of this can mean good if you really want to break that bad, meaningless habit of late arrivals. Doctors recommend 7.5 hrs. to 8 hrs. of sleep per night for adults. Some may require as little as six, while others may need as much as nine. The bottom line is, sleep early to avoid waking up late and earning yourself a written warning!
3. Avoid giving yourself excuses for being late.
Lying to oneself is the most dishonourable thing one can do. It becomes bad when you create excuses for arriving late and expecting your superiors to believe them. Trust me, they’ve been around the block to for ages to know if you’re lying or not.
Instead of spending time making up excuses, you can utilize those
minutes on planning how not to arrive late.
4. Refrain from setting up more tasks than you can handle.
Setting up meetings, appointments and events that are out of your reach will in the end tarnish your image and make you look unprofessional. If you set up multiple tasks at short
intervals, you are bound to be late at one task. It’s advisable to handle one task at a time as scientists recently discovered that the human brain is better suited at focusing on a single thing at a given time.
5. Give yourself more time than you actually need to get to work.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry. Leaving home while there is
still ample time is a good thing. Some things that are not in our power can happen and I’m referring to things like getting stuck in the early morning traffic or arriving at work to struggle with finding parking space (You don’t have to worry yourself if you’re the boss and you have your own parking lot with your name written in bold.)
6. Set an alarm.
You might have heard the saying, “I don’t need an alarm because my passion wakes me up.” But I guess you wouldn’t be reading this if it did. You now have plan B because plan A failed: set an alarm or better, two alarms. As crazy as it might seem, setting up to alarms will help you as the noise will be intolerable and end up forcing you to wake up. You will first start with two alarms and as time goes, a single then… You will end up waking your lazy self up!
The above tips will sure work wonders if you only apply them and they will ensure that you don’t get sent packing with a box full of nothing but photos taken when you arrived late for work. You want to start getting to work early tomorrow? Prepare today!
