My new experiment: Commute hacking

I’m a nut for productivity. I have to be, considering my large family, the many things I’m involved with, and my goals for 2018 (which include blogging every week day and reading one book a week.)

None of that could happen if I wasn’t always trying to optimize how I spend my time.

It all starts with an almost religious-like focus on my calendar and to-do process, and I recently hired a part-time admin to help with coordination of meetings and help with small projects. I’ve worked to slim down meeting times, I’ve cut out most of my TV watching (so I can read more,) and I say “no” to more things than I ever have before.

But I think I’ve just had a major break through.

Yesterday, I looked through my calendar to see how much time I’d be driving throughout the week. This week that number is 8 hours. 8 HOURS!

Now, I’ve always tried to make the most of my driving time. I listen to books on tape and podcasts, and try to make some calls. But I still can’t really work while commuting…or can I?

What if, instead of driving, I took Lyft and road Marta, freeing up that time to allow me to do actual work? If that worked, this week I would have 8 more hours in the week to get things done. That’s incredible! That’s like getting an entire extra day in the week.

So today I started the test. I have two meetings this morning at Ponce City Market (PCM) and it cost $17 for Lyft to get me here* from my house (technically there is a Marta bus stop near my house, but Google Maps told me it would take an hour and 7 minutes to get to PCM, so that option was out.)

I’ll have two meetings at PCM, then I’ll take a Marta bus to the train, jump on the train, and zip to my next meeting in midtown. From there, I’ll take the Marta train to bus back to PCM for my final meeting of the day.

The cost of Lyft + Marta today should be about $42. But, I’d have had to pay for parking both times at PCM, so let’s take $10 off of that and make it $32. I drive an electric car, otherwise I could also deduct a few dollars for gas as well.

For that $32, I’ll have 1.5 hours of work-time that I would otherwise would have been behind the wheel, unable to do any real work. I think that’s a pretty good return on investment, considering my time is the most valuable asset I have.

My plan is to do this for a week or so and see how much more productive I can be. I’ll report back on how it goes ;)

~ photo by @matthewhenry

* I’m writing this post from PCM. Early mornings at PCM are great for grabbing a coffee from Spiller Park and sitting on the second floor pounding away on the laptop. It’s quiet and relaxing.