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I'll Be There in 5 Minutes Calculator

Discover how much time could disappear because your five-minute estimate wasn't exactly five minutes.

Lifetime extra hours late

2,087

Across 80 years of nearly being there.

Extra minutes per week

30

Extra hours per year

26

Lifetime extra days

87

Remaining time spent being late

1,305

Hours over 50 more years.

  • Runs entirely in your browser
  • No data is stored
  • Free forever

What is this calculator?

Five minutes is rarely five minutes. This calculator takes how often you arrive later than promised each week and the average number of extra minutes involved, then totals the drift into hours per year, lifetime hours and days.

How does it work?

Late arrivals per week times average extra minutes gives extra minutes per week. Scaling by 52.18 gives hours per year, which is applied across the years lived and the years ahead, then divided by 24 for days.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a late arrival?+

Any time you gave an estimate and arrived after it — meeting a friend, joining a call, or getting to the car.

What should I put for extra minutes?+

The gap between the time you promised and the time you actually turned up. Ten minutes is a common default.

Why is five minutes never five minutes?+

It is the planning fallacy: we estimate the task itself and forget shoes, keys, traffic and the goodbye at the door.

Does this count time other people waited?+

No. It measures your own drift. Multiply by the number of people waiting for the full social cost.

How accurate is the lifetime number?+

It assumes today's punctuality holds for life, so treat it as a playful projection.

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