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How to Deal With a Chronically Late Friend
You won’t be able to change them, so focus your energy on other solutions
Laura Vanderkam, the time management expert who wrote Off the Clock and Juliet’s School of Possibilities, is here to answer your scheduling questions. Check back every week for more advice, and send your own productivity problems to asklaura@medium.com. (Your name will not be used.)
Dear Laura: I love my best friend. I love spending time with her. She is also chronically late. We agree to meet at 3 p.m., she’s there at 3:30 p.m. There’s always a reason, but as I become busier with work and family responsibilities, I’m increasingly resentful of time spent in a coffee shop or in the waiting area at a restaurant, wondering when she’s going to get there. What should I do?
As a comically punctual person — one who shows up awkwardly early for social gatherings — I sympathize with your dilemma. When I agree to do something or be somewhere at a certain time, I figure out what steps need to happen for me to be there. I calculate how long each of those steps will take. I count back by that amount, and then I build in a buffer, in case something goes wrong.
This means that I’m walking into Starbucks for a 3 p.m. appointment at 2:53 p.m. To go to all that bother, and then be stuck…
