The Real Reason Why Some People Always Late

VIVA – When some people always late, it means that they are not arriving at a designated time or meeting a deadline as agreed or expected. Being late can cause inconvenience, frustration, or even harm to others, such as missing a flight, being late for a meeting, or causing delays in a project’s timeline.

The habit can be caused by some factors, including time perception, time management, and personality, experts say.

"There's likely a mechanism in the brain that causes some people to be late for meetings because they underestimate the time it will take them to get there," Hugo Spiers, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and the co-author of a 2017 study in the journal Hippocampus.

The hippocampus is a region of the brain that processes some aspects of time, such as remembering when to do something and how long it takes, Spiers said.

Research published in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience suggests that neurons in the hippocampus acting as "time cells" contribute to our perception and memory of events, but why exactly some people perpetually underestimate time is unclear.

One factor may be how familiar we are with a space. For the 2017 study, Spiers asked 20 students who had newly moved to London to sketch a map of their college district and estimate travel times to different destinations.

While the students' place estimates expanded if they knew an area well, their gauge of travel time contracted with familiarity. "If you're very familiar with a place, you start to discount the hassle it will take," Spiers stated.

In some cases, people who are late may not factor enough time to complete tasks unrelated to travel, such as getting ready in the morning. Research published in the journal Memory & Cognition suggests that we make time estimates based on how long we think tasks have taken us in the past, but our memories and perceptions aren't always accurate.