One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to be on time. I consider myself to be a decently punctual person, but in the last couple of years I’ve noticed myself showing up to things later and later. I’m a little late to class, a little late to lunch with friends, a little bit behind when I’m trying to meet a deadline, etc. At Stanford you can usually get away with it, since professors often start class a few minutes late anyways and other students tend to be late more often than not, so maybe that contributes to why this lateness has started to plague me in my college years. Whatever the reason, I thought this was a good opportunity to examine this phenomenon in my life, and see if I could uncover anything interesting about its fairly recent origins.
To try to learn more about this new habit, I tracked myself over 4 full days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, although most of the data came from Friday and Monday, days where I adhere to more scheduled activities. Saturday and Sunday I was traveling, but still had some activities. Here is the breakdown:
Friday:
Late to lunch (30 mins)
- I started working on something else and really wanted to finish it
- I thought it would take less time than it actually did
Late to pick someone up (3 mins)
- While I wasn’t that late I was still rushing and feeling behind
Saturday:
Late to the Mines
- Did work before and wanted to finish up a final task
- Shopping before took longer than expected
Late to Dinner reservation (90 mins)
- Bad estimation on driving time
- Rescheduled to later
Sunday: Not late!
Monday:
Late to get to Coho (10 mins)
- I wanted to be there by 9 am
- Willa forgot her computer so we had to go back to my house and get it
- Once we got to my house we couldn’t find it and spent ~10 minutes looking for it
Late to class (8 mins)
- Got location of class wrong
- Wanted to just do one more thing in the lab before going
Late to getting picked up (2 mins)
- Couldn’t find my jacket I misplaced it
- Trying to do one last thing, just lost track of time
In order to get to the root of why I continue to be late to things, I created some models representing my habit ecosystem. I have attached them below:
Fishbone Diagram:
Connection Circle:
Takeaways: Looking across the four days and mapping the patterns through both the fishbone diagram and the connection circle, a few clear themes emerged. Most of my lateness wasn’t random, it stemmed from predictable loops tied to how I start and stop tasks. I consistently underestimated how long things would take, especially when I was already engaged in something I wanted to finish. Small delays compounded when I misplaced items or had to double back for things I hadn’t prepared in advance. I realized that I’m often late because of an aversion to idle time and a desire to maximize productivity right up to the moment of transition. These tendencies interacted with a flexible campus environment where lateness often carries minimal immediate consequences, reinforcing the habit over time. Taken together, the models made it clear that being late for me is less about carelessness and more about a set of mindsets, a finishing mentality, optimistic timing, and transition friction, that subtly shape my routines. Understanding these loops gives me a more realistic starting point for changing them.
