Punctuality

Punctuality is coming early and according to appointment or agreement. Making 10.0’Clock to be 10.0’Clock or 8.0’clock to be 8.0’clock or 4.0’clock to be 4.0’clock. Best to be at the venue of event 10 minutes before the time of event.
Going late to work or appointment is one of the bad cultures of our society. It is therefore built into most of us from childhood by our parents. We need to work very hard to break the habit of late coming and replace it with the habit of punctuality.

The 5 Foolish Virgins

Jesus is teaching many things in this parable of the 10 virgins. One of the things he is teaching is punctuality. Others include foresight, preparedness and the principle of “extra-mile”. The 5 foolish virgins experienced a lot of loss because of their carelessness.

Importance of Punctuality

• It is the soul of business
• It is a sign of respect for authority.
• Lateness is a canker worm that can kill the good spirit needed for any work to be well done.
• Lateness is a bad attitude. It is a break of agreement.
• Lateness is a sin but we don’t want to see it that way.
• It grieves the Holy Spirit
• We lose time if we are not punctual.
• Lateness offends other people and discourages time
• Punctuality gives a good name lateness reduces your reputation.

How to Overcome Lateness

Commit yourself to proven strategies of being punctual
1. Accept punctuality as a virtue that gives dignity and lateness as a vice.
2. Have everything ready the night before –dress, shoes, wristwatch
3. Keep your essentials in one place possibly near the door e.g, Telephone, car key books,
4. Wake up on time; and that means sleeping on time.
5. Use alarm to alert yourself and please respect your alarm.
6. Don’t overload your morning. Let your breakfast be fast to get ready and fast to eat if you have to take breakfast.
7. Find ways of forcing out of bed any child that is always reluctant to get out of bed.
8. Be realistic on how long it takes to get things done to leave home
9. Be realistic on the time it takes to get to the venue
10. Anticipate unforeseen delays and budget extra time for them.
11. Plan to be at the venue 10-15 minutes before the official time. Downtime that is the time it takes to wait at the venue for programme to kick off is not a wasted time. . Use downtime to rest, relax, reflect, read, or meet people etc.
12. Overestimate time by 10 minutes.

LATENESS GIVES YOU A BAD REPUTATION. ALWAYS BE PUNCTUAL