Are You Leaving Office On Time or Late Continuously?

Leaving office on time is always a challenge. People get used to being late and then it becomes a habit. It is hard to break it, if you have practiced it a lot. Let's try.

Before reading further; just try and answer the question "Are you leaving the office on-time or late continuously?" and keep the answer to yourself. Most of the employees in an organization have to follow a plan, stick to a schedule. Also there are estimates for the tasks that are pending completion. As an employee in an organization, if you are not leaving the office on time as planned, you must be spoiling the working culture of your organization. Others may feel fear to leave the office on time even if their tasks are completed. We are not discussing about getting late very rarely, but about getting late each and every day continuously.

There may be many excuses for getting late continuously. May be the estimates and schedules are not realistic, so you simply have to spend extra time to complete. May be you are not competent enough to complete those in given time frame. You may be working late to cover tasks of others since you are keen in completing the work according to the schedule. May be your house or compartment is not comfortable enough compared to the office, so you do not wish to leave soon. Or in worst case; may be you have a belief that if you leave early, the risk of getting you fired from the organization is higher.

Reasons to leave on time

Whatever excuses you make, you are harming yourself quite a lot than how much you help the organization to grow. We received a set of points regarding this from an anonymous, which is published below in blue color; with our comments in black color. Let us know if you know the author of this list so that we can give credit.

1. Work is a never ending process. You can never finish the work.
• True; however you must quantify the amount of work that has to be completed on a given time frame. However make sure that you complete what is agreed on time; if you do it, then you can consider that you have satisfied the expectations.
2. Interest of a client is not more important than your family.
• Completely agree, you should not consider the client as more important than your family at any instance. But you must know that a company must exist for you to work, and a company needs clients. So completing the promised tasks on time to keep the client's expectation is quite important; so do not let the client's expectations go down.
3. If you fail in life your boss or client will not be the person to offer a helping hand but your family and friends.
• Must be correct in many situations and organizations. However I have witnessed some organizations taking so many steps to help the employees as well as their families in need at the required moments. Your clients may not be there to help, but the organization will. Sadly if you are not in such a good organization, either try and get your organization to that state or just think a bit... there are plenty of organizations that require your service.
4. Life does not mean coming to office, going home and sleeping. There is more to a life. You need time to socialize, entertainment, exercise and relaxation. Don't make your life meaningless.
• It is better if you can read it few times and memorize. It covers almost all activities that most of you do not have time to complete. You are neglecting exercises since you do not have time; think about 24 hours of your day and see whether there is any task that you can compromise for exercising for 30 minutes.
5. A person who sits in office still late is not a hardworking person. He is a fool who does not know how to manage work within the stipulated time. Besides, he is a loser in life who does not have personal or social life.
• Staying late in office does not mean that you are a hard working person, but this statement may be false for few managers as they believe much in working late. If you have such a manager, may be it is the time to consider a switch (either the manager or the organization itself). Always keep in mind that productivity goes down dramatically when you work late.
6. You did not study hard and struggle in life to be a machine and live a meaningless life.
• An important point, if your life is like a machine where you do not have time for anything else other than your job; it is better to consider about changing the way you spend your time.
7. If your boss forces you to work late, just forward him this article. He will try to make his life meaningful too.
• Another good point, if your boss does not believe in leaving on time, it will not be easy for you to leave early. So first try to let him know the importance of leaving on time which will reflect soon on to the working culture. So consider sharing it with your co-workers including the boss.

What can you do to leave on time?

If you are in the habit of working late continuously, consider changing it by considering the above facts as reasons. Read Seven ways to leave the office earlier as a guide line in accomplishing this.

As the first step, set a reminder 30 minutes before the office leaving time, so by 5:30pm you will be automatically notified if you are set to leave at 6:00pm. After that reminder, you can consider winding up the task you are in and plan tasks for next day.

Most importantly, make sure to keep office tasks out of your head when you leave the office since you are leaving the office on time to gain time for you to socialize, entertain, exercise and relax.