The Importance of Time Management

Timings for everything are important, but remarkably more important in the military for a uncountable amount of reasons because they allow for such things that the British Army needs to thrive such as structure/planning, being reliable/dependability and efficiency. Not adhering to timings could cause a break in trust and respect already gained with comrades and anyone in your chain of command, also could produce a lack of confidence in others perception in myself as untrustworthy which is a shame because I like to take pride in my values and standards that I do try my hardest to follow these however, nobody is perfect and it appears that I've slipped my guard and for that I am suffering the consequences of my actions and behaviour.
I could write this essay and fill it with excuses as to why I was late, but the fact of the matter is that there is no excuse and I have never been the type of person who makes up excuses. There is a list of reasons that timings are not only important in the army but also in life in general as everything revolves around time. If you are someone that is late to things it reflects bad on you and could even lead to extreme or life threatening consequences depending on the situation, for example I was late to a guard duty which lead to the guardroom being short on personnel and thus, reducing the effectiveness of the guardroom. If the camp was ever to come under attack this could put the whole camp in danger because the first line of defence is in that event incapable due to that lack of personnel especially if there were other soldiers such as myself that also lacked punctuality. It is the little things like that can build up and become a consequence so much more serious than original offence. How can somebody be depended on for anything if they cant even been depended on to carry out a simple duty. I also agree that the punishment should always be more severe but not overly excessive than the committed violation because consciously or not the offender should if they are smart enough understand that the misconduct should not usually be worth the punitive measure that will in most cases follow. I understand that my actions, unintentional as they may have been, portray me as a bad soldier which in all honesty I believe it is not who I really am for I am proud of the reputation I hold with my friends, family and work colleagues so I welcome my disciplinary action hoping that I will be able to redeem myself and any credit regrettably lost through my recent actions, for I strive to be the soldier that can be depended on and relied on; the perfect soldier essentially, and I will continue to push forward and improve my skills to no longer let others down but also to not let myself self down by bringing things like this upon myself. Punctuality also shows respect for the unit and the chain of command and not showing up on time can be taken offensively and definitely as rude. Even though in this particular case it is not major offence, being in the military it could involve significant loses such as being demoted, getting a fine or wages completely taken off you, inconvenient extra duties and even a range of jail sentences. It is the concept of time management that is the key, so when the situation does require for you to be relied on then I could be a reliable resource that could be depended on because of all the practice of adhering to timings to the smaller more minor parades which then in time creates a self-concious personality of reliability and efficiency allowing for a less pressured, less stressful mindset and therefore sharper perspective so a more complex task to be achievable. Which all comes down to practice for operational effectiveness because operations are where the lack of values and standards could get somebody killed. Structure is an extremely important trait not just for the British Army but for anybody who wishes goals to be set and achieved in an