MENDING OUR PUNCTUALITY IS A VIRTUE

By Tungnung, Zamlunmang Zou

It’s something that our parents taught us against; the teacher at school was extremely critical about and something that instances indiscipline. Yes, getting late! Not being punctual is something that all of us experience at some point in time. It grows into a problem only when it becomes a recurring phenomenon. Nevertheless, the paradigms have shifted of late. In most places, unlike in the olden days, we are not monitored for the work scheduled we keep; the quality and the end result achieved are important. What we are, however, evaluated on is being on time for meetings and other important occasions. Every time we are late, we made an impression of being careless, not being sensitive to other people’s time and worst of all not respecting others. This impression, if strengthened over a period of time, can be more damaging to our career then anything else. The other factor is that when we are late, we try to either conjure up the most absurd of excuses or make ourselves invisible-hardly the ideal thing to do. The more invisible you try to be, the more conspicuous your delay becomes; and the more excuses you make, the chances of your getting trap grow more.Being late to work/meeting is a serious problem, especially if it happens more than a couple of time. Tardiness is not a trait tolerated for too long, and it will certainly come up during your performance review. The first most obvious sign of professional in punctuality. And, if you were otherwise, you’d better learnt to be, at a quickest possible time. It sounds simple but developing a good habit in the hardest things to do. Psychologists have proffered a reward-penalty solution for the problem. Every time you reached your engagement spot on time, congratulate and reward yourself after the event. A reprimand should be penalty enough for reaching late. This process of conditioning when followed over a period of time will eventually infused punctuality. Try out some simple tricks like aiming to reach five to ten minutes earlier, especially in important occasion and at your working place. Have the courtesy to call in advance and inform about thew delay: This will saveyou the embarrassment in front of your colleagues, it also shows that you have respect for the time commitments of the others in the group who are being held up because of your indiscipline. Punctuality is a virtue that is stressed to redundancy during our school days. While impost in childhood, it is only when we entered serious work environment that we realized it is an important component of success and reputation wherever we go, it is never too late to make punctuality a good habit.