09.04.2025

4 MINUTES DELAY - WHAT THE HELL IS SOMEONE ANGRY? IT MAY BE INHERENT, BUT HOW IS IT OVERCOME

You are at work, you have to go to a meeting in the next room, and it is not clear how it turns out that you are there a few minutes after the appointed time. And after the boss, unfortunately, who glares at you. He probably thinks you're late because you don't know how to organize yourself, you don't really care about work, you're lazy, you don't respect your colleagues, and other unpleasant things like that.

According to a new theory, all of this may not be true, but you may be one of those people who are genetically predisposed to be bad at managing their time.

Studies show that about 20% of people have difficulty meeting deadlines. For them, time seems to flow differently. They perceive it in a distorted way - sometimes it stretches in their imaginations, and other times it shrinks. This makes their way of thinking illogical, says researcher Grace Pacey.

They have trouble determining how much an activity will take them, mistaking it for 20-30%. They fit something into their schedule that they think they will be able to complete. They leave at the last possible minute and leave no reserve for unforeseen delays.

The researcher calls this type of people time warpers. "The problem is not in their upbringing, but in their nature," she assures.

Time warpers can be identified with the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Test. It is complex and with different combinations of 4 pairs of opposite preferences (such as thinking-feeling, judging-perceiving) forms 16 personality types.

According to Pacey, time warpers are perceptive individuals who prefer to react spontaneously. Because they are born that way, they can hardly beat being late. It is not an acquired, but an innate habit.

Science has long been aware that every person has a built-in neurobiological clock that dictates a sense of time. It is largely the same for all people. Life rests on it, and without it the consequences would be catastrophic. For example, without a generally uniform and correct idea of ​​time, the ability to estimate distance and speed is lost, because the brain calculates them in time, and this will affect driving.

Exactly how the biological and neurological mechanisms of the internal clock work is not known. Scientists have so far only identified the brain lobes that are responsible for time judgment. But like everything else in the human body, these mechanisms can be disrupted. Some scientists even talk about a new branch - medicine of individual time.

The so-called hyperactive people, for example, have exactly a problem with the sense of time. The condition is thought to be due to insufficient activation of three brain centers due to a lack of dopamine. Drugs that stimulate the production of dopamine restore the normal activity of these brain centers and the true sense of time.

In some people, the innate sense is very strong - you can run a stopwatch and when it says 48 seconds have passed, it will point to exactly that. In others, the deviation is small. And for the third it is large - by 20-30%.

Perhaps for this reason, in business etiquette it is accepted to have tolerance - 15 minutes late for a meeting is not considered bad manners and disrespect for partners.

Medicine does not deal with people who are always late, but it is logical that for them the mechanisms of the internal clock work differently - they bend and distort time. It's not a defect and a disease, it's just a different feeling.

However, many of these people deny that they have a problem. Although they happen to be late very often, they get used to living like this. This can be detrimental to both their careers and their personal lives, because it hurts those close to them - they see it as disrespect. Therefore, the first step is awareness of the problem.

The second is a desire to deal with it. Although they cannot get rid of it completely, they can learn to adapt to external conditions and adopt other behavior, as, for example, closed people try to use ways characteristic of extroverts, the researcher believes.

Pacey advises what to do if you want to cure yourself of chronic tardiness.

You should always set a deadline that has clear, real-world consequences. Make them aware - what happens if you are late. For example, the vehicle will leave without you, the person you have a meeting with will leave offended, the boss will punish or fire you. This will spur you to action and strive for a truer real time estimate.

If there is no deadline - a meeting time, say, set yourself. Say to yourself "If I don't finish this by 3pm, I'll be late for the next one and I'll have to stay past 5pm and I'll have less free time today".

It makes the most sense, if you are always late, to make a habit of always starting early. But then you will feel like you have too much time. These types of people work most effectively right before a deadline, Pacey says, and cautions against jumping in too early because you'll get even more bogged down with your assignments. Because of the long distance between the start and the end point, time will "bend", your productivity will be low, you will rush only at the end and you may still be late. At least for routine tasks, use your experience of how long it takes and leave a small reserve for unexpected obstacles .

It is useful to make a detailed list of what you have to do every day, try to plan a schedule and set a deadline for everything. Since you have a problem with the perception of time, this list should not be wholesale, because then the probability of making a mistake in your judgment is greater. Break the task into smaller steps to make it easier to visualize how long it will take you to complete them.

The other thing is to try not to get distracted by anything or anyone. This is important for everyone, but even more so for people who do not have a good sense of time. Your internal clock won't tell you at the fifth minute to stop chatting with your colleague because you're missing your task schedule. Therefore, try not to get carried away at first.

-------- What warps time ----------

Science has found that even in people whose sense of the innate neurobiological clock is working correctly, there are activities that disrupt it. If you are aware of them, you will not be late.

People lose track of time when they are intensely focused on an activity. Then the working memory is fully occupied and has no capacity left to count the time correctly. This means that you can be extremely conscientious employees and miss the starting time for the meeting with the boss. Don't take the risk of him looking askance at you just because you were engrossed in work, activate the alarm on your smartphone or computer to remind you.

Emotions change the sense of time, say scientists. Pleasant ones speed up time. A person simply does not feel it when he is in love, joyful, happy. So if you are engaged in a work task that you really like, you can get so carried away that you don't feel how hours have passed. The bottom line is that even in such moments you must consciously control yourself so as not to get into trouble with the boss.

Unpleasant emotions slow down time. Half an hour with the boss criticizing the team feels like half a day.

Everyone knows this from their own experience, but researchers have established with complex experiments that confirm the change in the perception of time according to external stimuli.

Their observations have also shown that in older people the sense of time seems to slow down, while in young people it speeds up. Therefore, children are very impatient or new employees think that in just a few months they should get a promotion.

The practical takeaway from the theory is to be aware that emotions and age affect your sense of time, and try to account for slowing down or speeding up so you're not late.