6 Reasons Why it Makes Sense to Arrive Early

Copy­right of Cor​bis​.Com and Tim Pannell

I’ve always been a stick­ler for punc­tu­al­ity. I hate being late. It stresses me out if I’m in a hurry, and if I’m run­ning late to a meet­ing. I’ve been late sev­eral times though. I remem­ber miss­ing a flight because of a Manny Pac­quiao fight. I do not want it to hap­pen again. Mike St. Pierre dis­cusses why it makes sense to be early for meetings.

Mike St. Pierre
Mike St. Pierre is the host of The Daily Saint, a pro­duc­tiv­ity blog focus­ing on work-life bal­ance. www​.thedai​ly​saint​.com

Why bother show­ing up early when you can blame any num­ber of things for “mak­ing” you late? There’s traf­fic, a con­ve­nient ally when you need her. A dis­tant cousin to traf­fic would be a free­way acci­dent, which of course cre­ates traf­fic. Then there’s the bla­tantly obvi­ous excuse of sleep­ing through the alarm which causes you to get on the free­way late and immerse your­self in– you guessed it– traf­fic. All of these are con­ve­nient excuses for late­ness but there’s a flip side– being early is way cooler.

When you’re early you get the best seat. Just like when you get to church early or a movie the­atre 10 min­utes before the show begins, seat selec­tion is the name of the game. If it’s a meet­ing, get some dis­tance from whomever will be run­ning the show. If it’s a pre­sen­ta­tion, get a spot that will not cause you to visit the chi­ro­prac­tor due to the way you had to twist your body to see the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion. When you’re early, you get to choose the ideal loca­tion for opti­mal learn­ing and inter­ac­tion with your peers.

When you’re early you can pre­pare your gear. Ever see a per­son squirm to find their cell phone as it embar­rass­ingly goes off dur­ing a meet­ing? If they had arrived early…you get the point. Arriv­ing early affords you the chance to put your lap­top in “go” mode and your cell phone in vibrate mode. Your paper and pen are just where you want them to be and you’re ready to roll.

When you’re early you can hear the boss com­plain about the guy who is run­ning late– at least he’s not com­plain­ing about you! I’ve been in many meet­ings where the boss looks to us and says, “Any­one know where Joe is? He does know that the meet­ing is right now, doesn’t he?”

When you’re early you can look over the agenda. If your meet­ing plan­ner didn’t mail you one in advance, arriv­ing early lets you peruse what’s on the hori­zon and any men­tal notes that pop into your head can be writ­ten down as oth­ers are arriv­ing. Sure, there’s an agenda pre­pared for you but arriv­ing early lets you think about what you want to cover in the meeting.

When you’re early you can fix your cof­fee. I like cof­fee with my creamer so arriv­ing early lets me pre­pare things the way I want, rather than a bland cup of joe the way some­one else wants. It’s a small thing but it saves you time in the long run. If you arrive late, you’ll want to get some­thing to eat or drink but will feel guilty because you’ve already make a scene by being tardy. This will occupy about 5–10 min­utes of your time and who wants to waste more time by wor­ry­ing about some­thing as small as caffeine?

When you’re early you are just plain cooler. Just like being orga­nized, early folks have their ducks in a row and know what they’re about. They might be para­noid about being late or they might be neu­rotic about the clock, but let’s face it– early peo­ple gain a huge advan­tage because they are atten­tive to the small­est of things.