Timing Is Everything.

All personality types can be late. But the ones who get a “reputation” are frequently a certain type — that would be Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms. Time-obsessed folk often label these guys as lazy or inconsiderate. But, this isn’t so. These types simply enjoy time as a more of an open-ended entity versus a limited quantity ideally parceled out precisely. Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms are less likely to schedule every minute of their calendar because they’d prefer to leave it a bit open to see what pops up.

A friend of mine (a Classic Structure obsessed with punctuality) is constantly perplexed as to why his grown son rarely confirms he’s visiting him until the last minute. And even then, his son is never certain about the exact time of his arrival (seriously, he has a hard time giving a window). It drove my friend mad until I explained to him that knowing his son, he was likely a Fun Freedom. My bet? His son wants to see whether he’d be missing something fun at home before committing to a visit. (ok, this is Katie, with her Organic Freedom perspective and I would wager, as someone who actually experiences time challenges, that he also might have been so engrossed in what he was going that he lost track of time. Also, we don’t have a great sense of time. What feels like it should take half and hour, in reality probably takes an hour. But most of us strive to be on time, and we don’t mean to disrespect, we just often get sidetracked.) The two of them see time differently than each other: po-ta-to/po-tah-to. Better to give up wondering when he’d change and just accept who he is.

Of course, the golden rule with personality type and preference is that nothing is absolute. Funs, Organic Freedoms and Smart Freedoms can be on time for work (food & shelter is on the line, people!). The real test is in your (or their) private life. Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures can be late but they will not have a reputation for being loose with time and they’ll likely only be 15 minutes late because they were trying to pack too much into their day. (If you missed this one then re-read our post on this subject!)

So, when one of your notoriously late guests shows up an hour late tomorrow (and there wasn’t an accident), now you can officially know that they are either a Fun, an Organic Freedom or a Smart Freedom.