Always Late? Science says It’s A Great Thing

We all know that one person who, no matter how hard they try, is perpetually late? to everything. The person that says, “yeah, I’ll be there in 10 minutes” hasn’t even left the house yet and you know it. It’s not that they mean to always be the last one to the party, it’s just in their nature (yes, I’m one of those people). However, when this affects your working life, it can be an issue – it’s not cool to always be the person late to the meeting – but it’s not all doom and gloom; there are positives to being the last one in. The next time someone gives you grief for being tardy, you may smugly remind them that, according to science, if you’re always late, you’re basically winning at life.

According to?Business Insider, unpunctuality is a common trait of people who are successful, creative, and optimistic. Yes, those that can’t get a handle on time promptly deserve you to cut them much slack as they have a lot on – all that multi-tasking is bound to make you lose track of time, after all – and are busy being happy, positive people. Because they have such a positive life outlook, this leads them to believe they have more time on their hands than they actually do – and may explain why they aren’t great at keeping deadlines, either.

But they are generally more successful; a study among salesmen has proven that optimists tend to?complete 88% more sales?than their colleagues – this is because they’re more likely to look at the bigger picture, rather than distracting themselves with insignificant details.

It’s also worth pointing out that if you’re a Type B person, you’re generally perceived to be creative and very relaxed and hence, are proven to perceive time differently: a study which saw a group of research participants asked to guess how much time had passed after a minute resulted in late people thinking that 77 seconds had passed, whereas people who are typically on time, guessed 58 seconds.

See? It just means your brain is wired differently, fellow non-punctual people.