busyMost people are late occasionally. Some people are late chronically. It is usually due to carelessness and/or lack of organizational skills. So the first things you want to check are:
* Does the person realize that being late causes difficulties for self and others?
* Does the person CARE about those difficulties?
* Have they taken basic steps to avoid lateness, such as having accurate timepieces (if feasible), making schedules, and studying organizational techniques?
The article raises an interesting issue: ability to estimate time required to complete a task. Some people are really good at this. Others are really not. To some extent, this can be compensated by timing oneself and memorizing or recording how long it takes to do things, rather than trying to imagine how long it will take. (Frex, I have timed myself writing, so I know that it takes me -- very roughly -- an hour to produce a thousand words. Sometimes considerably more or less, but that's a good ballpark estimate.) This ability is something that can be measured objectively by giving someone tasks and asking them to estimate the completion time. It should be measured with both familiar and unfamiliar tasks, because skill at estimation may differ for those categories.
Closely related to this, not explictly mentioned in the article, but implied in the fellow's description of his experiences, is the ability to get tasks done -- or lack thereof. Some people are excellent at staying on track and dealing with unforseen complications. Others are not. To some extent, this can be compensated by padding the deadline. It doesn't always work, but for most people, it reduces the frequency and duration of lateness. Like estimation, task progress is a thing that can be measured.
We'll set aside the social issues of demanding more from people than they can possibly accomplish, or expecting them to get places faster than is safe or possible, which can cause lateness. We'll also skip folks whose presence bends the spacetime continuum and/or causes timepieces to malfunction, thus making them often late (or early). Those are separate challenges outside this discussion of mental processing of time management.
It's one thing to blame people for being careless. It's quite another to demand that they perform well in an area where they have little innate talent or ability to acquire skill. The latter is a disability -- a pretty bad one, in our culture. So while most people who are frequently late probably do that out of indifference or ignorance, some probably do it out of disability. And the appropriate responses are different: indifferent people need to learn empathy (or how to emulate it), ignorant people need to learn time-management skills, and disabled people may need an assistant or some other accommodation for a potentially life-wrecking problem that can't simply be trained away.
Chance of people actually bothering to test for this? Or trying to ameliorate the various reasons for lateness? Probably almost zero, despite the fact that lateness is something people complain about frequently both in personal and work contexts. Because then they might have to do something other than cast blame or make exuses, and that would be work and likely cost money. I bet they'd rather just keep being late or bitching at late people.
Well...
August 28 2013, 00:52:42 UTC 7 years ago
There are different aspects of shopping:
* knowing what you like and use
* knowing what you have used up and need to replace
* knowing what you use regularly and want to keep available
* knowing what you need for a specific purpose
* deciding when to buy things you like to use only on occasion
* spotting new things you might like to try
It's an excellent idea to keep the basics handy so you can make things on the spur of the moment, like if someone gifts you with a big box of tomatoes or if an unexpected guest arrives. (Today we found out that an intended dinner arrangement was best suited prior to our next shopping trip. I stuck my head into the chest freezer and sorted for something I could cook with available ingredients.) This also works fine if you hate planning meals in advance or you just suck at doing that. As long as you stock appropriately, you can cook at whim.
If you like making menus, just check ingredients during the planning stage. Write down what you need to buy, and take the list to the store. I do this if I'm planning to make something like spaghetti sauce to be frozen, because it needs a lot of different things we don't ordinarily stock.
>> But ask a man to go to a hardware store, and he'll browse the shelves for hours if allowed, thinking to himself "I could certainly use this in the shop!" For me, the kitchen and household is as much a workshop as a carpentry shed, and this pattern of thought is thus allowed to dominate. <<
That's fine if you're on a "what can we use?" shopping trip. We actually do that several times a year, stocking up. It's less useful for weekly shopping trips.
But yeah, I think of my kitchen as a workshop/lab. It's a creative space, when I have the opportunity to do more than just heat food for the two of us. I'm willing to grab a new ingredient just to see what it does. I like combining things in new and interesting ways.
>> Because exercising the executive-function behavior of making an organized list of specific projects is hard for me. <<
For things where making a list or otherwise thinking up stuff is hard, I find it helpful to have a worksheet or guide of some kind. Like you can get a pantry list and check off what you need, rather than having to think "what are items in the baking category of ingredients?" Or you can make a custom list, which is a pain in the ass but you only have to do it occasionally. We keep a list of what's in the freezer so we can cross off or add items. We're pretty fair at keeping that current, and when we defrost the freezer, we redo the list from scratch.
Groceries and self-management
August 28 2013, 01:10:19 UTC 7 years ago
By making the meal list, you then don't have to spend a lot of time and effort every day/night asking yourself or your companions/loved ones what you should have to eat, and you can more plan the amount of time you spend cooking your meals. This pre-planning can make for more stable mealtimes, as well as easier cooking decisions.
Pre-planning your meals, and then shopping to your pre-planned list (with the contents of your pantry and herb/spice cupboard in mind), reduces the amount of "Oh, this would be nice" impulse shopping. Couple this with a good meal before your shopping trip, and you won't be as likely to grab stuff just because your body wants calories; with the pre-planned list of groceries, you can simply say "This isn't on the list" and thus give yourself some mental space to think twice about extra purchases like candy, magazines, or other recreational substances.
But in order to have this sort of organization, the effort of making a weekly meal list needs to be done.
This kind of pre-planning activity is also good for autistic/Asperger's individuals who may want a regular, consistent life schedule with just a little variation to help them accommodate life's random trips and quirks. You can substitute several sets of favorite dishes with occasional well-in-advance-warning adventures into new foods. "I haven't had squash before, and I hear it's good for me. On Thursday, I'll try baking acorn squash with some butter and a side salad, and making a soup out of it that evening for Friday if I like the taste. If I don't like acorn squash Thursday, I'll ask around my office if anyone would like soup from it, taste the soup just in case, then give the stuff away if I can't eat it. Plan B for Thursday and Friday will be something I really like, like waffles, just to feel better about trying something I might have learned I don't like at this time."
Re: Groceries and self-management
August 28 2013, 18:43:49 UTC 7 years ago
That's a great motivational idea for anyone.