Hope for the Chronologically Challenged?

I have a looong history of being "always late, but worth the wait". In fact, I even remember arriving to elementary school late on a somewhat regular basis. It's really something that's basically ingrained into my being. I've been late to every kind of event you can imagine.

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, I want to stop. I thought when my son came along over three years ago, that I would "magically" morph into this punctual individual that would never inconvenience anyone by arriving 10 or 15 minutes late. Hmph! I was so disappointed when my son's first doctor's appointment rolled around, and there I was, on the freeway when I should have been filling out paperwork! Surely, I would stop being tardy for the sake of teaching my son good habits...right?!

I actually had a span of probably six months to a year when I did really well with arriving on time to work and other commitments. This was before marriage and children. I don't know what happened after that. I just drifted out of the habit of being punctual. I really believe that at the time, I must have been tapping into the grace of God, mainly because it wasn't really difficult to be on time during that time period. There was a "character building" series being taught at church, and suddenly I was convicted of the importance of punctuality. It worked for a little while. It was pretty rewarding too. At the time, I worked at a job where they actually kept track of your tardies and absences and you would get penalized for both. It would affect our bonusing potential if we were tardy or absent. I stayed at that job for a couple of years and left not due to being fired on account of tardiness, but because I was offered a better job...at which I was repeatedly reprimanded for my tardiness. Go figure. By the way, prior to that, I had held a plethora of other jobs where I was habitually late. Most of those employers didn't really care.

So, anyway, here I am now, a wife and mother of two...chronically late to most every appointment, church service, volunteer commitment, birthday party...whatever. Now more than ever I feel the need to stop this horrible habit...but I just feel like I don't know how! I can get things ready the night before, get up extra early, and so forth, but I just haven't discovered the (lasting) key to breaking this awful habit. It's so bad, that just recently I told someone (quite matter-of-factly, I might add) that I realize full well when I'm late; I am fully aware of what time it is. But then I completely disregard whatever information I receive from the clock on the wall...and go about my business only to get to my destination "when I get there".

I know it's irritating to other people. Even I get irritated when people are late on my clock. You would think I would be forgiving of this fault in others, right?

Anyway, hopefully someone can come along and offer some tips or something to help me get over this annoying character flaw. I'm really going to start making a diligent effort to be on time. I will probably post about my attempts in the upcoming days and weeks. Let me know if you know of anything that helps, or if you've overcome this thing in the past. Thanks in advance!