“If you are five minutes early, you are already 10 minutes late.” – Vince Lombardi
Last week, we introduced the three habits required to excel in any field, according to the very short book “Stand Out” by Jordan Raynor. Those actions are: Show up on time, respond to your messages and complete your tasks on time.
I am beginning to realize that all three of these actions overlap. They all contain some element of timeliness – show up on time, respond to your messages promptly and complete your tasks on time.
Zero Dean does a great job explaining the concept of being on time in his post on Punctuality.
He writes “Consistently being on time is the product of proper planning, personal discipline and respect for other people’s time. Making a habit of being late demonstrates none of these things and is often a sign of patchy priorities and selfishness. Habitual lateness says, 'My time is more valuable than yours.'"
Being on time is an outcome of a disciplined life. This is true whether we are talking about being on time for a meeting or delivering a product or service on time.
I am much better at showing up on time than I am at the other two habits required to stand out. My habit of getting up early was probably cemented in my life by my exercise habit. I had a strong desire to be physically fit and to experience the other benefits of exercise like less stress, better sleep and a longer, healthier life.
Over time I realized that working out rarely (if ever) happened later in the day. Somehow the world would conspire against all my plans and by the end of the day, the workout never happened. So I started waking up earlier and earlier.
When I was training for the Ironman my days would start at 4:30 a.m. That was the only way I found to get the training time in and still be on time for my job.
Regularly getting up that early in the morning drove me to get to sleep earlier. I started to cut out television at night and began to get prepared for my day before I went to sleep. Sticking to the early wake up forced other good habits into my life. Now, I am rarely late because I was in bed. I can be late because I tried to squeeze too much in before my meeting, but we’ll cover that problem in the other two actions.
So, how can we always be early?
1. Get Out of Bed Earlier
Getting out of bed earlier than most people has brought untold blessings into my life. I get to exercise which helps my mind and body perform better. I get to work earlier which gives me time to get my mind right and priorities set before the rest of the world wakes up and the chaos begins. Waking up earlier allows me to get quiet with God before my day starts. I’d like to sound super-spiritual here, but most of the time God is bringing to my mind what I should be doing that day (and what I should have done yesterday).Waking up early creates “buffer time” or margin in my life. That margin allows me to be less stressed, more peaceful and much nicer to be around. I haven’t found any category of life where extra margin (the space between my current performance and my limits) isn’t a good thing.How can you get up earlier? Start small. Set your alarm clock for five minutes earlier than usual and get out of bed when your alarm goes off. Even if you only got a fraction of the sleep you needed, get up. Don’t think. If you think, you’ll rationalize staying in bed. Just get up.The great thing about getting out of bed even if you are exhausted is that you will be craving sleep that night. You’ll likely go to bed earlier and the process will get easier and easier. Keep setting that alarm clock just a little earlier and you’ll start to experience the peace that comes from margin in your mornings.2. Plan To Be Really EarlyIt used to be that I could justify showing up places just in time because that meant I’d waste no time waiting for others to get there. Technology has erased that excuse. Now we can do many productive things while we wait for meetings to start.We can make phone calls from the parking lot, we can catch up on emails or we can deepen relationships by talking to others that arrive early (They are probably great people to know). The possibilities are endless. Keep a list of to do’s you can take care of while waiting for your next meeting and you’ll be less prone to show up just in time for the sake of productivity.Try being early and I know you’ll like what you experience. Peace is a great thing and it is very difficult to obtain when you are running late!We love helping leaders build great businesses.
If you’d like to learn more you can check out our free resources at
www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders build great organizations and better lives for themselves and the people they lead.Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA, and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.
