Print"Uh, sorry I'm late..."
This may be a sign that your commitments are beyond your personal bandwidth. If so, consider the following suggestions to conquer habitual lateness:
+ Trim your sails. Write down a list of your commitments -- daily, weekly, monthly. (Your spouse or a partner can help.) Determine if some of these can be jettisoned, delegated, or reduced. Prevent over-scheduling by learning to say no. Reduce your list of regular commitments by at least 10 percent.
+ Get your 15-minute daily downtime. Lateness and forgetfulness may be signs that you need some downtime to restore calm and balance and to increase brain function. Harvard University mind and body expert Herbert Benson, M.D., recommends 10 to 15 minutes a day of a repetitive, mindful activity (deep breathing, meditation, yoga). You can do it in the morning to start the day on a calm footing or in late afternoon.
+ Adjust your emotional balance. Your lateness may be a sign of too few positive emotions or too many negative emotions, both of which hurt brain function, particularly memory. Check your ratio of positive to negative emotions on positivityratio.com. The tipping point is 3:1, above which our brains function well and below which they don't do well at all.
