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Alfie Lawson (he/him/his), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

It’s around 7:28 in the evening. I have plans to meet my friends at 7:30. Despite rushing to get out of the house, and some thoroughly robust power walking, I know I won’t make it for another 10 minutes. So I get out my phone and type up what could be my catchphrase: “Sorry guys, gonna be a bit late.”

Yes, I am known as “the late one.” I’m always running slightly behind the plan. Some of the people who know me have even adapted to this. They’ve started to arrive 10 minutes after our agreed meet up time, and jokes about telling me to get somewhere an hour early are common.

My recurring challenges with punctuality often annoy me. However, I’m not the only person to go through this, with YouGov finding in 2014 that nearly one in five U.S. adults are late for work at least once a week. So with habitual lateness seemingly widespread, let’s talk about the reasons why this could be.

Running Late

Trying to pinpoint what makes a person late can be a complicated journey. Any notion that I’m just selfish and that I perceive my time as more valuable than others feels misplaced. I’m not that inconsiderate, right?

Well, thankfully, it appears there’s more to it than that. Research shows that there are multiple types of late people. They include the following:

• Deadliners: They enjoy the rush of meeting a deadline, often at the last minute.
• Rationalisers: They believe that external factors such as traffic are to blame.
• Indulgers: They prefer to take their time and might struggle to begin a new task.
• Producers: They have to keep busy; they’re usually late due to multitasking.
• Rebels: They don’t like to follow the rules, especially seemingly arbitrary ones.

Most of us will fit somewhere in between these categories. For instance, one of the reasons I’m often late is that I don’t like being early. Being early means I have to kill time, which feels like a waste of time. It often results in me doing more before I leave the house, and I unintentionally try to get to places exactly on time. This probably makes me a bit of a deadliner and a producer. 

I can also see myself as a rationaliser. I think that my reliance on technology can do more harm than good, because if Google Maps tells me it’ll take 22 minutes to get somewhere, I’ll leave 20 minutes beforehand. I often find myself walking faster than these apps predict, so I rationalise that it won’t ever take as long as predicted. If I end up being late, then it’s the fault of the bus I had to catch or train that turned up a minute off of what Google Maps said.

Are there exceptions?

Whilst our motives for being tardy may differ, many argue that lateness is driven fundamentally by conscientious personality traits. More specifically, we are either “timekeepers” or “timebenders.”

Those in the latter group are the people who don’t enjoy routine, and frequently jump between tasks instead of finishing things one at a time. They will often have messy desks at work or disorganised living spaces because of this. It is also this habit to timebend that causes us to be late, regardless of the type of late person we are. 

However, despite the title of this piece, most people have exceptions. Again, from personal experience, I tend to arrive to things like job interviews and flights early. But if I’m catching a train that departs every 20 minutes or so, then I’m far more likely to be late.

So perhaps when things are unfamiliar or difficult to reorganise, punctuality is less of an issue. But if the consequences of being late aren’t severe enough, then my habit to timebend emerges. 

Thus, my instinct is to try and meet deadlines exactly and keep busy instead of arriving to places early. I seem to unintentionally do this whenever it’s likely that I’ll be forgiven for not being on time. 

But I hope that, if I’m only slightly late for things and it doesn’t inconvenience my friends, family or myself too much, there are worse things in the world than being tardy. Our lives are so rigidly structured around time and schedules that it’s often okay to be a little out of sync occasionally.

Overall, it’s been worth trying to understand why it feels like I’m never on time. If I get sick of texting my friends my “I’m going to be late” message, or if running for every bus and train gets too tiring, I’ll pay attention to that clock a little more. Until then, you can probably find me running to the nearest bus stop or train station.

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