Time Management

Minimize your travel time (or at least make it more effective)

The average person spends 1.2 hours per day in their car (or some form of transport). This is 18 days per year, or approximately 7.5% of your waking life.

Wow! There's a lot of potential to save time and be more effective in this area of your life.

So what can you do?

First, think about how you can reduce your driving time. Think about the hourly rate you earn per hour and now add in the cost of gas and maintenance for your car. How much does that trip to buy groceries REALLY cost. It's a lot more than it seems at first. Here are some ideas for how to reduce your driving time:

• Order more stuff online.
• Organize your grocery shopping carefully so that you only shop once a week.
• Combine different things that you have to do in one trip.
• Work from home!
• Live closer to where you work.
• Get a personal assistant to shop and do other chores that require travelling.

Of course there is a limit to this. You don't want to become one of those people who never leaves your house.

So for the time that you are driving (or in a train or bus) what can you do to make this time more productive?

• Keep a list of phone calls that you need to make. Put this list in a place that you can access whilst in your car (maybe put the list in your pocket or in your phone). Then every time you are driving, use your hands-free kit to make calls.
• Listen to educational material in your car.
• On a train or bus, keep a folder of reading material that you have been meaning to get to but did not have time.

This is simple stuff and if you are focused on time management, you've probably put much of it into practice already, but it's good to check and see if you can make any improvements in this area as it takes up such a big chuck of your life.