How to Never Be Late Again

In Wednesday's rather popular post, I included a quote from Dan S. Kennedy's No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs...

There is a link between respect for others' time and respect for others' opinions, property, rights, other kinds of agreements, and contracts.

Contracts would even include marriage contracts. Maybe if spouses respected each other's time there would be less divorce?

When dating, my late wife Nicole was amazed that I would always ring her doorbell at the exact time we agreed upon. Not a minute early or late.

"How do you that?" she finally asked.

"I just show up 15-30 minutes early and read a book in the park at the end of your road."

Here's a photo of Nicole, on that very road in the High Park section of Toronto, from those days, some twenty years ago...

I used the same never-be-late strategy with the only (paying) job I ever had. Work started at the restaurant in an underground mall under downtown Toronto's First Canadian Place skyscraper at 8am...
 
I'd show up at 7:45am and read a book on a bench in the corridor by some potted plants. At 7:58, I'd get up, walk into the restaurant, put on my hat, wash my hands and punch in. It was a bit of game making sure my punch card said 8:00am every single day.

None of this was a hardship. It relieved me of the anxiety of being late. I also looked forward to showing up early because it meant I got to read whatever book I had on the go.

So if you want to never be late again, I recommend you buy a good read — a page-turner that'll motivate you to show up early to appointments. Because, quite frankly, if you're not early, you'll probably be late.

—John C. A. Manley

PS And if you are looking for a good book to read when you show up early for appointments, may I recommend Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story?

PPS Odessa Orlewicz, on the latest episode of Liberty Talk Canada, tells how she has just started reading Much Ado About Corona...
 
...So far she says it's "excellent" and recommends it as a "great Christmas gift for your friends and family, or you can get it for yourself."

---

---

---