Unclutterer: As the person who was voted by his classmates “most likely to have a tardy slip” in eighth grade, I’ve had a lot to overcome when it comes to punctuality.
If someone were to ask me about why I was often late, my most common answer would have been some variation of “I ran out of time.” Does this sound familiar? Additionally, I thought that arriving earlier than I needed was a waste of time. Why sit in the parking lot and do nothing for 15 minutes? Also, there’s a rush that can accompany sprinting out of the door at the last second.
12 comments:
Being early is indeed a very good habit that needs to be cultivated. It's certainly something that I'm working on myself because it not only helps you in the long run, but will leave others with a good impression of what type of a person you are. No one is going to want to work with or collaborate with the person who is chronically late. On the flip side, if you're chronically early, you are seen as being responsible, loyal to the project and a team player. You're the first one to be there and the last one to leave. In my life, I've learned not to procrastinate and it's helped my physically and emotional health tremendously. When you allow yourself to have more time, you are less stressed and you feel accomplished for working and managing your time well. That's one aspect of the CMU Drama Production program that I feel like really beats into you-- there is virtually no way to make it in this program if you procrastinate. And if you do, then your work will be not as good as it could be and you will be constantly stressed and tired. This also reminds me of a conversation I was having with my boyfriend (who is a chronic late sleeper). I tend to be in bed as soon as I physically can (11pm-12am) because the days are long and taxing and so why wouldn't I want to catch a few extra hours of snooze? He on the other hand, tends to go to bed at around 2-3am. That being said, while we were discussing this he brought up the good point on how sleeping late and waking up late is perceived as lazy while sleeping early and waking up early is perceived as productive, even though both ways could provide you with the same amount of sleep. Lateness is associated with being unreliable and in such a time-strapped industry like theater, literally every minute counts.
This is a really well done article that is definitely relevant to us as students, especially since we are in theatre. In theatre, as we all know, early is on time and on time is late. Honestly, before Carnegie Mellon, I did not fully understand the value of being early. At some point this year, it occurred to me that getting things done early and getting to class early takes away a lot of the stress in my life. The author points out how getting places fifteen minutes early is fifteen minutes gained, not lost, and that is definitely something I have learned since I arrived here. I used to think it was useless to get to class that early, but now I have realized that getting to class early gives me time to get everything I need ready for class and even start working on things before class begins. The struggle is always convincing myself that this is a good idea at eight in the morning when I would much rather lie down for another fifteen minutes than head over to Purnell. However, I am getting better.
I have always been early to everything in my life. I was always known as the friend who would be ready to be picked up first for the movies, or be timely when arriving to an event, so on and so forth. And while this author puts a charming spin on the benefits of being early, socialization, productivity, and relaxation, I feel that after all these years of being early that being late is something I was bad at. Being late, or even the chances of being late, used to make me irreparably anxious and uncomfortable and just put me even more on edge than I had been previously. But in the past few years, I’ve been late to stuff and nothing terrible has ever come of it. Sure, I’ve minorly inconvenienced some people in the process, or maybe someone was mad at me for a short period of time, but it has ultimately helped me worry less and be more accepting of delays.
Ugh. I fear what everyone is always telling me may be right. I’m a big proponent of being on time to things, especially things that repeat. Not 15 minutes early, but not 1 minute late either. Just on time. Of course I would never do that to like an interview or something, but it is my general rule of thumb. However, everyone around CMU leaves so early for everything, and honestly I guess this article is why. The first two pro’s listed are pretty undisputable. You really do get time to breathe and prepare, and I imagine if I did go to things early maybe someone would ask me to help out like this writer says. I think the biggest thing holding me back is the fact that I don’t look at going down fifteen minutes early as a gain, because I have to put down what I am already working on to go sit and prepare myself for the next task. This seems like such a big time waste to me. But I do think that the two points outweigh this logic. Also I forget stuff a lot, so some wiggle room for me to run back upstairs will do me some good.
I am chronically early. I have been for most of my life, of which I get from my parents. As a kid we would always arrive anywhere from 15- 45 minutes early. Although this sometime infuriated me as a kid, I have since inherited this from them. I feel like there is a happy medium somewhere in between being chronically early and chronically late. For me, I get stressed and anxious at the mere thought of being late to something. There are the benefits that the author listed of being early, of having time to compose yourself, but that only can go so far. I have been working on becoming less stressed about being early, so I can enjoy my time before any scheduled thing without constantly glancing at the clock. I have gotten better in the past year, but I know that I still have more of a ways to go.
Being early is definitely not a habit of mine that I try to do. It's interesting how after coming to CMU I have developed different definitions of "on time". If I'm going to class/crew, 10 minutes early is on time and I would panic if it's 5 minutes before class and I'm still on my way. But if I'm hanging out with friends, especially people outside of drama, on time means either literally on time or 5 minutes late. If I show up early, I'll have to wait for at least another 5-10 minutes. It's interesting how aware of time we are, but not so much for people who don't work in theatre because of the amount of free time they have. This article definitely makes good points that I resonate with. Being early, especially for the first thing that starts off the day, sets the tone for the rest of the day. I'm glad that theatre has taught me to be early, my mornings now compared to my mornings back in august is so much more efficient and organized. Now I think I just have to learn to take that and apply it to areas in life other than theatre, since as the article discussed, being early is just a great habit to have.
Like Alex said in her comment, I grew up in a family that was early to nearly everything and it was at times incredibly annoying (for example, why do I have to wake up at 5:00 in the morning to get to the airport when the flight isn’t until 9:30?). Now that I’m not constantly surrounded by them, I’m not quite as good about being early as the rest of my family is but there are times when it shines through, for example coming home from winter break, I got to the airport roughly six hours early, why? Because that that was only slightly earlier than what I’ve grown up thinking of as an acceptable time to get to an airport before a flight (also it meant travel was cheaper since I could split it with other people but that’s a whole other inherited habit and a story for anther time, maybe if there’s an article about people who don’t like spending money). But most of the time I’m either right on the edge of being late or more commonly 5-10 minutes early, some of this definitely comes from my family but some of it definitely comes from having spent some much time around theater people and getting the idea of early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable drilled into my head.
I think the thing that makes me most stressed here beyond all of the drafting, whako projects like Rube Goldberg, arcade, or even playground the thing that makes me most stressed is walking down stairs to a crew call. It’s terrifying, did I leave early enough? Am I going to be able to walk into the theatre and take 30 seconds before I work or is my crew head going to glance at their phone as I walk in. It probably doesn’t make a huge difference to our productivity weather we work for 119 or 120 minutes but it is really important to me that I’m on time everywhere. At CMU that has become like 20 minutes early to everything just out of habit. I find it so incredibly stressful to arrive just in time because it’s just expected that you’re there absolutely ready to work whenever we do anything at exactly the time decided.
There is definitely a lot of buzz about time management/ how early to show up for meetings in our program, since so much about theater is based on first impressions and being organizational about your deadlines. I think that, in terms of showing up to class and crew calls, there is never any harm in showing up early. That is one of my habits that has definitely changed from my days in high school of getting to school at the last possible minute, since here our teachers expect us to be ready to work at the start of the class period, not just in our seats. This could mean setting up a new sheet of drafting or meeting with your project group to discuss how you will present your idea or just mentally preparing yourself to work hard. I think a lot of this is also due to the fact that the majority of us seem to be excited and eager about our classes. Several of us have noticed that this has also conditioned us to show up 10-20 minutes early to our electives, even though those teachers don’t set up the same expectation and we are almost always the first ones there. Personally, I enjoy having this time to organize my planner, go over the homework, or just relax for a few minutes. It can definitely be draining going from class to class to class to crew and back again without any time in between set out to be empty, and being early eliminates the constant fear I know many of us face about not setting up a good impression. If anything, I also think that showing up early is 99% about respect; it shows that you respect and honor the scheduled time that your teacher/ crew head/ interviewer has set aside for you.
My family has always been 15 minutes early to everything, which I think is mostly a cultural thing. In the U.K. if you get somewhere less than 15 minutes early then you're viewed as being late, which gives people the idea that you don't care. That changed a little when we moved to the US, as most people are much more relaxed about timing in a social setting here. However, I'm really happy that it stayed with me in a work setting. My friends are always berating me for wanting to leave so early for things like crew, but I stand by the belief that leaving early is always better. I really loved his point about it being time gained vs. time lost. If I can leave early I can use that little bit of time to be productive, or talk to the friends I would have been with anyway. It's always better to be safe than sorry, especially for things that involve your grades or eventually a job.
In high school I volunteered at a local community theater as a costume assistant. Although I was on time a lot of the time, I also was late enough that the shop manager thought that it was just my habit to be five minutes late to everything. Once I was running late and I sent her a text reading “I’m going to be late because of who I am as a person.” She thought it was hilarious and perfectly suited me. Even when I was chronically late I didn’t think of it as a good thing, but I thought it was just a symptom of me being disorganized and that the main con was the panicked feeling I had as a rushed out the door. I realized that being late is not just a problem for you but also disrespectful of other people’s time. Since coming to college I’ve tried to break the being late habit. I wear a watch that is set five minutes fast, and I make an effort to always, always be on time. But that doesn’t mean I won’t slide in at 8:27 for an 8:30 class. Even just making it on time can be stressful and I like the idea this author talks about of being chronically early. I now like to think of being somewhere by a certain time as being present. Therefore, being early is almost essential in any situation so that you can unpack, get organized, and be ready to go before the actual time you are supposed to be “there.”
This is a really great article that makes me think a lot of my freshman year. In the midst of all of the projects and stress, it was important to me that I got every minute of sleep possible. Yes, I mean every minute. When I left in the morning for drafting or design, it was always exactly 9 minutes before class because that's how quickly I could get up to the studio from my dorm room. However, this 9 minutes actually left me fairly out of breath and a little uncomfortable by the time I got into the room. It was in the spring of my freshman year that I started realizing the value of being early to things in order to (physically and mentally) catch my breath. I've found more recently that if I do not have these moments of relaxation before starting to work, or listen, or just be present, I have a very hard time focusing or feeling confident. Yeah, it's nice to hang around at home or with your friends or whatever before you go do your thing, but it's a lot nicer to be able to stride in ready to work than it is to stumble in still trying to get your mind on track. Being early has become a very important part of my life (and my sanity) lately, so I definitely appreciate a list like this one.
Post a Comment