Sometimes You Should be Late

"Amid an avalanche of advice urging us to race faster, Snider shows that the smartest move is often to slow down. He reveals how strategic pauses in our hyper-scheduled lives can produce an array of benefits – from wiser choices to deeper relationships to better work. This book reminds us that time’s real value lies in the human moments we refuse to rush.” - Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE POWER OF REGRET and WHEN

"I hate to be late. My beloved is really easy about being late. Shamelessly so. Happily, I am learning from her. This book can teach you to chill and be at ease too!" — Jack Kornfield PhD author of The Wise Heart

Being late can feel awful...but rushing can, too. It's the dilemma of urgency culture. This book offers a way out.

Sometimes You Should Be Late isn’t about becoming a sloth, cute as they are. It’s about slowing down enough to choose how we move through time. Don't expect 'five easy steps' to master the clock or 'time hacks' to optimize your morning routine. Instead it's a guide to help you decide who you want to be even, and especially, when time feels tight.

Coming July 7th – pre-order from the traditional channels here:

About the Book

We live in a culture that treats speed as virtue and lateness as failure. Many of us move through our days with a low-grade sense of being behind on emails, text threads, deadlines, relationships, even our own lives.

Sometimes You Should Be Late challenges the idea that urgency or speed brings us closer to the kind of person we want to be. Blending research, stories from government and everyday life, and practical reframes, the book explores how our relationship with time shapes stress, judgment, and relationships of all kinds...and how we can choose differently.

This isn’t a call to abandon responsibility or stop caring about punctuality or productivity. In fact, speed and timeliness can be genuine ways of caring. Instead, it’s an invitation to reclaim choice. To slow down before rushing costs us something, to show up with authenticity instead of performance, and to relate to others and ourselves with more patience and humanity.

As we move through our short lives, what if allowing ourselves to be late, not always, but sometimes, is how we find our way back to ourselves?

Origins

I lived a frantic, high-tempo life until a concussion in 2017 forced me to slow down. I never would have chosen it, but the years of recovery revealed something unexpected: greater clarity about what actually mattered.

In April 2025, I wrote a Psychology Today article with the same title, and it struck a nerve. Readers shared stories of recognition (“If I hadn’t let myself feel rushed, I would have been a far better parent”) alongside pushback (“Aren’t you just justifying flakiness?!”).

Together, these experiences convinced me that slowing down isn’t a failure of discipline, it’s how we remember what matters.

This book is for anyone who feels constantly behind and believes there is more to life than optimizing. But it's also for those who are often the first to arrive.

How can it be both? Well urgency culture diminishes both. It shames those who are late, even when they’re showing up with care or juggling a lot. And it also flattens the care of the punctual ones, branding them as rigid and time-bound. This book is about reclaiming the dignity of both.

My hope is that this book will:

• Help you better recognize your own patterns and values around time, productivity, and urgency.
• Offer practical reframes for busy lives that help you more consistently show up how you want to.
• Empower you to influence the cultures you’re part of, so we can find more care and kindness amid the ticking clocks. Goodness knows our world needs it.

You can find the book here:

Other nice things people are saying about it:

• “With so many pressures making us feel the perpetual crunch of time, Alex Snider reminds us that our greatest asset can often be slowing down and reconnecting with ourselves, others, and the world around us. Sometimes You Should Be Late explores time as a moral and relational choice and shows why slowing down in the right contexts isn’t an obstacle to progress, but a prerequisite for it. So sit down on your proverbial porch, take a few deep breaths, and (slowly) savor this book. - Jamie Metzl, bestselling author of Superconvergence, Hacking Darwin, and The AI Ten Commandments
• If you get agitated while waiting, blame traffic for your tardiness, or can't stomach the idea of slowing down, this book is for you. In Sometimes You Should Be Late, Alex Snider reveals the unacknowledged costs of rushing on our bodies, minds, and relationships. This insightful meditation on time is ultimately a call to be more compassionate toward others and ourselves-and to stay attuned to our values more than the clock. - Rhaina Cohen, Bestselling author of The Other Significant Others
• Sometimes You Should Be Late is refreshing and blunt without ever being preachy. If, like me, your first instinct is that it’s not aimed at you, that’s probably a sign that it’s aimed at you. - David Graham, New York Times Bestselling author of The Project 
• “I just finished a book about checklists hoping it would have a modicum of usefulness, but it didn’t. This book, by comparison, is a massively helpful and instructive guidebook that doesn't just offer techniques but helps us see our habits and choices more clearly.” - Robert Shea, former associate director Office of Management and Budget, CEO GovNavigators
• “Confession: I don’t think it’s OK to be late. But I think this is absolutely the right challenge - to live intentionally. To focus on relationships. To understand that urgent times call for calm, not pace. If we all moved a bit in the direction Snider is pushing us, I have no doubt we would not just be happier; not just more ‘effective’; but also that the world would be a better place.” – Dan Honig Author of Mission Driven Bureaucrats: Empowering People to Help Government Do Better
• "In organizations driven by speed and constant urgency, Sometimes You Should Be Late helps leaders rethink time not as something to optimize or hack but to spend better—so they can make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and lead with greater impact. It's a practical antidote to urgency culture and a better way to show up that our world and workplaces need now more than ever." Jeanette Bronée, Author of The Self-Care Mindset