Dealing With The Time-Blind

Seen this latest career-related viral vid clip? An as yet unnamed young woman agitated to tears after a potential employer tells her they cannot make “accommodations for people who struggle with time blindness”.

As the Daily Mail lede explains;

A TikToker has claimed she suffers from 'time blindness' and slammed businesses for criticising tardy employees who struggle to be punctual. The user, Chaotic Philosopher, posted the video on TikTok and said she thought businesses that 'cut off' employees who 'struggle with being on time' need to be dismantled.

Any genuine condition, such as being neurodivergent, deserves sensitivity and understanding.

Yet it feels unreasonably hard to judge being time-blind this way.

And to go by the landslide of unsympathetic mockery the clip garnered, this seems the prevailing view. Many suggest making personal 'accommodations' herself, most often citing the life-improving wonders of an alarm clock.

My perspective on tardiness is long baked. Everyone can be afflicted once in a while. But the real cancer is the perennially late.

These require a ruthlessness on your part.

My over-riding emotion is how little such person shows they value your time.

And all associated with such snubs.

There's a few old sayings you've likely heard variants of.

I won't let your poor timekeeping become my crisis

Your emergency is not my urgency

Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine

Similar to the destructive effect of the 'last-minute merchant', remedies exist.

If the domain of Time Management is your thing, among manifold options, it even has its own snappy alliterative devices.

4 Ps; prioritising, planning, productivity, positivity

4 Ds; delete, delegate, defer, do

Then there's the Productivity Gurus in general. Who preach avoiding the Urgency Trap. As seen with one of the most famous 2x2 matrices, a technique often cited alongside the name, Napoleon. Its axes plotting how much each 'task' is urgent and/or important.

Imagine swapping that around - in the way of modern-day wellbeing - so that you consider not your, but the other person's, viewpoint on the schedule for which you run late.

Punctuality has value. It is signalling, to use the economics term, your worth and the worth you place on other people's time.

You turn up late one too many a time, and we're done.

Insight No. 25 in my book revealing 52 Ways To Get What You Want From Virtual Meetings is but one chapter touching on countering this.

In part, one approach you can take is tri-angled.

Thinking prevention is better than cure, working through in-call mitigations, and leveraging the power of post-meeting cultural norms and records.

As an aside beyond the medium of meeting over video, I recall my musings from 2011, featuring real-life events.

There's quite the list of tactics at your disposal.

Send pre-work, solicit agenda approval, seek specific comment prior arrival.

Encourage advance warning/apologies, send targeted reminders beforehand, re-state value of attendee participation.

Mobilise those for whom you represent raised standing, prepare contingency, separate or waiting-room extension 'activity' if certain people are late, be ready to switch up running order and graphics.

With plenty more besides.

After all, the deeper alternative of time-blindness mustn't be as veil for proposal-blindness.