I like this concept of coming early (as for now, I am unrealistic in planning and often come late).
I often move together with my 4 yo son, who hates to wait and for him coming 1 hour early will be a tough situation to handle. But as we visit several places a day, most of them not at all interesting for him, we can use intervals to play/talk togehter

Annalie, nice to hear from you. I am an ENFP. I too love to keep options open. I just choose to create options at my destination rather than my origin, so there is never “dead and wasteful time.” Maybe your optimism is partly responsible for your 100% on-time success. Alas, when it comes to traffic and queues, my experience has been less than positive.

Another thing that I do to support these two objectives, as well as a third one, which is “to always be at my best, especially for clients” is to, whenever possible, arrange my schedule so that I am able to work at my best times in my own body clock timezone. I live in the Mountain time zone, and when I travel to the East Coast, I endeavor to schedule my work with clients at times that correspond to my most alive times in my regular world. That means that I present at 10am at the earliest. Rather than give in to pressure to start facilitating a group at 8am, which is really 6am in my body clock world, which would translate to getting up at 5am in my body clock world, I push back. Clients balk sometimes, but when I explain that they are paying top dollar for me and they would want me at my top productivity, they see my point and re-arrange schedules to accommodate that, if at all possible. Age brings wisdom (and courage)! Elayna

And by the way, I never feel as though watching TV is a waste of time. Because I have Tivo I don’t channel surf. But I do watch my favorite shows whenever the mood strikes me. For me, watching an episode of MythBusters is a nourishing experience.

This comment is a bit off topic, but I’ve tried something that I feel is consistent with the goal free approach.

The idea is to use “deliberate delay” to set up time where I feel that I am exceeding my expectations. – Actually by not having any.

Let me give some examples:
If I decide that I won’t leave my car and go into work for ten minutes, I am likely to clean it out, or maybe listen to the radio, or maybe remember to make a meaningful cell phone call.

If I tell myself that I won’t turn off my TV for “at least” 15 minutes, I am giving myself permission to enjoy the program or decide on programs to tivo.

If I decide that I won’t finish this comment for “at least” 30 minutes, I can feel good about working on this for an hour. This type of “deadline” lets me maintain my direction (moving on) without making my present time “worth less.” It’s also a deadline that I can extend without guilt.

I feel that setting the usual deadlines for my tasks set me up for failure.
They are based on estimates of what I am able and willing to do, and for me they keep me from enjoying the moment and increase my fear of failure.

These deadlines are also likely to result in “expectation inflation.” We “should” do everything faster so that we can get to the next thing that we “should do.” – a never ending project, with “to do lists” seen as “should have done already lists.”

Note to Steve,
You have my permission to edit any or all of this comment in any way.
Also an FYI.
When I did a google search for self improvement through deliberate delay I didn’t find this concept.

I read your e-mail as I was trying to decide between leaving early for a speaking engagement or finishing up some work.

Decided to take five minutes to post this comment, leave early for the venue and do the work there!

many thanks,
michael