If you can't be early, be on time.

For some time, I had really been annoying myself for being notoriously late for almost all my meetings and engagements. It's just plain rude and disrespectful towards everyone concerned.

This year, I am on a mission to be early!

What seems to help is to allocate slightly more travelling time in my diary than I used to; this does sound incredibly obvious, however, when you are in the middle of something and you 'just quickly' want to wrap it up, or send one quick e-mail before leaving, it becomes very easy to cut your time fine and before you know it you're running late. Things invariably take a lot longer to get to than 30 minutes, especially if you are based in Hout Bay and need to contend with unforeseen trucks, buses or tourists who are uncertain about the winding roads. I'll be honest, I am still looking for that happy-medium however I must admit that being very early for a meeting is considerably less stressful than late, and it also gives me a chance to catch up on phone calls or even read a paragraph or two of a book.

What has also helped a lot, especially when I want to 'just quickly'  do something before leaving for a meeting, is to think of these wise words from Robin Sharma: