How to Gracefully Recover from Arriving Late to an Appointment

Woman holding a coat

Wondering how you can recover after arriving late to an appointment or meeting?

Do you want some practical time management tips that will help you move forward with confidence and clarity?

Picture this…you’re busily working in your office in the morning.

You notice you have a 2pm meeting later in the day with a colleague across town.

You sit down to get some work done when all of a sudden you glance at the clock. You’re late for your meeting!

As you gather your belongings to leave, you wonder just how you’re going to deal with this time management faux pas…

In this post, you’ll find a few pointers to help you gracefully recover and make amends.

Time management skills include making the best of your time, even when things don’t go as planned.

Communicate immediately with the other party.

Immediately get in touch with your contact as soon as you realize you’re going to be late to an appointment or meeting.

Pick up the phone, send a text or email, and be blunt; you’re going to be late.

Don’t go into elaborate details about how you lost track of time or got side-tracked.

Just keep things simple and give an estimate of how long you think it will take for you to get to that location.

Depending on how late it is, you may come to an agreement to meet or reschedule your meeting for another time in future.

Look to see where you went wrong.

Good intentions aside, it is best to take a step backwards in time to see where things went wrong.

Did you honestly lose track of time? Maybe your watch or clock stopped?

Did your alarm not go off or did you not set it? Perhaps you mistakenly write down the wrong time for the appointment?

Be honest with yourself, it is the best way for you to fix your error in future.

Don’t beat yourself up.

We all arrive late to appointments and meetings every now and then.

Sometimes things are within our control and sometimes they are not.

It’s just a fact of life. Don’t let this one instance of lateness get to you.

As I mentioned earlier, honesty goes a long way.

If you were late, you were late, that’s it.

That time is now in the past and it is time to live in the present.

What steps can you take right now or in future to prevent your lateness from happening again?

Treat the other party thoughtfully.

Okay, so you ended up arriving 30 minutes late to your meeting with your colleague.

How can you make amends right now at this very moment? Be considerate.

If you’re meeting for lunch or coffee, you might consider picking up their tab.

You could make a note in your calendar to arrive 15 minutes early to your next meeting so you can get down to business immediately. 

Of course, treating other people with kindness and respect doesn’t absolve you from making a lateness a habit.

What truly matters is that you are showing you care about them through your actions.

How about you? What steps are you going to take to handle lateness in future? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!

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About the Author

Rashelle

Rashelle Isip is a New York City-based productivity consultant who helps successful entrepreneurs and business owners manage their time and energy so they can reduce stress, work less, and make more money in their businesses. She has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, NBC News, The Washington Post, NPR, and The Atlantic. Get her free guide, 5 Unexpected Things You Need to Organize a Work Notebook, by clicking here.

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