Some tips:

In my experience you have to make sure it doesn't come early, not just be at the stop on time. Buses coming early might be a bigger issue than buses not coming at all.

Always have the schedule with you (or on phone) so you can be prepared to wait for the next bus or find an alternative if it's infrequent/last bus.

Look for alternate routes or choose routes/destinations where there are multiple ways to get to the same place. So if one line isn't running, you can walk a couple blocks over and catch a different bus that's going to the same area. With buses, I find that normalizing the idea of walking 15-20 minutes on either end of the bus trip can be helpful since it gives you many more options and besides it can be good exercise.