Can you remember the last time you arrived somewhere early? Relaxed, composed, delighted. Maybe even just a little bit pleased with having pulled it off.
Maybe you were 15 minutes early, ahead of everyone else, and were able to greet everybody as they arrived. Perhaps you enjoyed your new status as the early bird and you even thought this might make a good habit to adopt.
Even if you were bang on time, it’s still such a thrill to arrive by the time you were expected. I know I love that feeling. It feels so very good. So what do you need to do to consistently get that early bird calm and confidence?
There are three critical success factors in arriving early. Do these with every meeting, appointment or event and you’ll get to experience that thrill of already winning, if only because of the time that you arrived.
First, you must realistically work backwards from the 15 minute early mark. So if your appointment is at 10:00, aim to be exactly in the spot you need to, but by 09:45. In doing so, you must recall your average times required to prepare yourself and journey to the destination. This preparation includes what you need to wear or bring, and assessing transport, weather, parking, security on arrival, possibility of meeting people on the way, etc.
Second, you must add in some contingency time on top of the first step. It depends on the distance travelled, but as an example, if it is within an hour, add 15 minutes (for traffic, bad weather or meeting someone you know en route). If your destination is overseas, add one to two days, depending on the importance of the event.
Third, you must know when to stop doing things beforehand and transition into get ready mode. You must not do, “Just one more thing”. Set a timer on your phone if you must to alert you to the transition moment. But, when it is time to transition into get ready and go mode, you must focus on that and not become distracted or engaged in anything else. You have no “spare” time. You have already calculated the time required to be there early and that extra contingency time was for unexpected things, not to borrow from.
If you do these three things, you will be early 95% of the time and get to feel the thrill of being early as your reward. There are so many other benefits from being early though too, such as a calmer mind on the journey, appreciation from others involved in the event and a sense of personal control and mental power.
At one event, to which I had arrived early, the benefit was that I was able to speak to the CEO of one of the world’s largest telecoms companies, for almost 15 minutes, before he had to prepare to address the arriving audience. Definitely worthwhile.
Develop the three-step habit above and you will get the thrill of arriving early, more and more, as your big new habit of arriving early is developed and reinforced, until it is firmly in your programming.
You may find the benefits to be priceless.