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You have a meeting at the office at 9am and it takes exactly 30 minutes to get there, so you leave early to avoid being late. However, it’s Friday so there’s heavy traffic (which you didn’t take into account) and road works, which will delay you even further. As the day goes on, you feel more and more anxious, and you end up rushing to get to work late, sweaty and impatient.
Sometimes things just don’t go well and we end up being late despite our best efforts, but habitual lateness can be caused by a variety of factors, including time management, personality, or external factors like being busy at work or at home.
Another psychological phenomenon called “time optimism” may also explain why some of us are always late. Simply put, time optimists (aka time optimists) underestimate how long something will take and overestimate the amount of time they have at their disposal.
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While it’s hard to estimate exactly how many people are prone to being late, research suggests it’s a common problem: In a 2023 survey, 35% of full-time office workers admitted to being late to work, and that figure rose to 40% for hybrid staff.
So why are we always late, and how does our optimism about time affect whether we stay on schedule?
“When planning a particular task, time optimists tend to focus on the best-case scenario and not take into account potential delays or complications,” says Dr Sophie Mort, mental health expert and clinical psychologist at Headspace.
“For example, when you’re writing an essay or a work assignment, you might tell yourself you can write it in a week. But when you actually sit down to write, you realise how complex the topic is and how much research it requires. And then other factors might intervene, like getting sick or your laptop breaking.”
What causes time optimism?
There are several reasons why we underestimate how long things will take, including different types of cognitive biases. These are systematic errors of thinking that occur when we process information and make decisions or judgements. Often, we don’t have the time or mental space to clearly think through all our options and make an informed choice, so we resort to shortcuts that can lead to mistakes.
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“Time optimism can arise from the planning fallacy, which is the tendency to underestimate how long an action will take by relying on overly optimistic scenarios,” says Mort.
Memory bias is another cognitive bias that may contribute. Research has shown that we often misremember things based on past experience and how long it took us to complete similar tasks in the past. We forget about the delays we encountered and therefore expect better results next time.
The “overconfidence effect” may also contribute to time optimism. (Fuse via Getty Images)
US-based career expert and psychologist Deirdre Orr says the “overconfidence effect” can also contribute to time optimism. “People often overestimate their own abilities and efficiency, believing they can complete a task faster than is realistic,” Orr says.
“Also, time discounting, where people value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards, may lead them to underestimate the time needed to complete a task with a distant deadline. For example, they may put off starting a long-term project because of a distant deadline, preferring to work on a task that will give them an immediate reward.”
Are more people experiencing time optimism?
It’s hard to gauge how much of us underestimate how long things will take, but it’s possible that your workplace, and the workplace culture as a whole, is contributing to your lateness.
“The prevalence of time optimism may be increased by several factors, including high workload,” Oh says. “When workload increases, employees are more likely to underestimate how long a task will take in an attempt to manage their responsibilities more optimistically.
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There’s also increased pressure to perform, and employees may feel compelled to provide optimistic estimates to demonstrate their competence and reliability. Oh adds that while technology can help increase productivity, it can also create the illusion that tasks are being completed in less time than they actually are.
Career expert and business psychologist Daniel Haigh says time optimism can also be caused by trying to multitask when we’re not actually good at it.
“Employees often multitask and misjudge how long each task will take without accounting for interruptions and switching costs,” she explains. “For example, estimating that a report will take two hours doesn’t take into account the frequent interruptions from emails, meetings, and urgent requests.”
How to avoid time optimism
Time optimism is driven mostly by unconscious factors, so it can be hard to realize you’re experiencing it, but there are some things to consider when estimating how long something will take.
Oh recommends thinking about the complexity of the task, as things are often not as simple as they seem, and it also helps to consider the distractions you might encounter and allow yourself more time than you think you’ll need.
“The modern workplace is full of interruptions and distractions — emails, meetings, interactions with colleagues — that can drastically increase the time it takes to complete a task. To combat this, I always recommend the use of time blocking and meeting schedulers,” she says.
It’s also tempting to set unrealistic deadlines to impress your manager, but it’s always better to be honest. Giving yourself time will result in less stress and better work than if you were to rush through it.
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