Do you ever feel the guilt of arriving late to something and thought to yourself why couldn’t you have left the house earlier? Are you always in a struggle to be on-time and can’t seem to understand why you always end up being late?

Let me teach you a trick that I do to my brain so that I’m always arriving early or right on time.

@Time Miroshnichenko / Pexels

First of all, I think that punctuality is a very important characteristic and if you are punctual, it leaves people with good impressions on you. I always plan ahead and make sure that I allow myself to have more than enough time to drive or take other forms of transportation. You never know when there will be accidents on the road or just random congestions of traffic due to the weather conditions. Everyone consciously drives slower when the weather is harsh because safety is the top priority. These all need to be taken in account when you are planning your trip if you want to avoid being late.

One little trick that I do for myself is setting my clock in my room to be five minutes faster than the real time. This method has helped me a lot in the past because it tricks my brain to think that time’s up. I will leave my house thinking that I’m on time, but in reality, I still have a five-minute window for more flexibility. The important part here is to let yourself be tricked. If you constantly remind yourself that the clock is five minutes faster, then it defeats the purpose and you’ll still end up being late.

@Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels

I always get asked by my classmates why I’m at school so early.  I convince myself with a bunch of benefits to make myself feel positive about waking up early. I tell myself that I want to be ahead of traffic, I want to get a closer parking spot, I want to enjoy a nutritional breakfast and I want to have time to review course material. My brain will eventually buy into these ideas and then I’ll always arrive early to my classes.

I don’t like the feeling of being rushed because that’s just too stressful and then triggers negative emotions. To cope with that I make sure that I’m staying positive and I find reasons to convince myself that preparing ahead of time and arriving early is beneficial.

Who doesn’t like benefits? It’s essentially just another trick to the brain.

Will you try to deceive your mind to be on time?