Eliminate a round trip

One way to spend less time in the car

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that you might be able to spend less
time in your car by eliminating one round trip from

(00:23):
your schedule. With a little advanced planning and strategic thinking,
you can substitute something fun or productive for time spent
going back and forth. So I hear from many listeners
that they spend more time in their cars than they
would like to, between driving to and from work, commitments,

(00:46):
doing errands, and then maybe taking kids all over the place.
Many of my listeners clock a lot of miles in
a week. Unfortunately, car time is hard to use well.
It's often necessary, but not terribly enjoyable. If that sounds
like you, consider this as a challenge. Can you skip

(01:10):
one round trip this week? If you think of all
the places you drive? I am guessing you could come
up with a way to do this. Perhaps you could
simply opt out of one of the trips. If a
lot of your driving is shuttling kids, perhaps you and
another family going to the same place could carpool. You

(01:32):
might also lean on your partner or anyone else who
helps you with your kids to take on one of
the drives. You may also be able to eliminate a
round trip by moving something that was in person online.
If you only have one in person meeting on a
given day and it's with someone you see in person frequently,

(01:54):
could you move that meeting to zoom or phone or
to another day so that you could work from home
and skip the commute. If you think a little more strategically,
perhaps you can skip an errand too. I know my
family goes to the grocery store more often than we
probably need to because we sometimes forget things. A good

(02:17):
look at the pantry and thinking through what you will
eat during the week can eliminate that. You could also
eliminate a round trip by camping out at a random
place rather than driving back and forth. Let's say your
kid has a ninety minute soccer practice that is ten
minutes away from your house. You certainly could drive back

(02:41):
and forth and have the hour at home, but you
could also wear your running shoes and go for a
forty five minute run and read for twenty minutes and
still watch twenty five minutes of the practice if you
stayed there. If there is a coffee shop right next
to your kid's ballet studio. Even if it is only

(03:01):
a ten minute drive home, Suddenly that hour becomes fifty
five minutes to work on a project, rather than a
thirty minute stint at home where amid all the distractions,
not much gets done. If you cut out a round trip,
suddenly you have replaced unwanted car time with an activity

(03:22):
you want more time for in your life. And that
sounds like a win to me. So this week, see
if you can eliminate a round trip one way or
another and find something more satisfying to do with your time.
If you do, I'd love to hear about it. You
could reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(03:47):
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(04:16):
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