Put travel time on the calendar

Getting places takes time, so it's best to account for it

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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 to put travel time on your calendar. Traveling
between places takes time, so you may as well account

(00:27):
for it. Since I write about time management, I am
fascinated by exactly why people are late to things. Sometimes
something comes up that was truly unexpected, but more frequently
people simply have not built all the constituent steps for
getting somewhere into the equation. A key problem here is

(00:50):
that people rely on their calendars, but their calendars don't
include the comprehensive amount of time involved in inactivity. If
your calendar notes a book club meeting at seven pm
at your friend Mirra's house, you then have to build
in the appropriate amount of time to get there. Some
people are good at remembering this, some are not, but

(01:15):
it is not necessary to rely on memory or guesswork.
When you put something on your calendar, you can also
put any necessary travel time around it. There are two
ways to do this. One is to include the travel
time in the event itself. So rather than put a
seven pm book club meeting on your calendar, you have

(01:38):
it start at six forty to account for the fifteen
minute drive and five minutes to get in your car
and park on the other end, and you can end
twenty minutes after you think the event will be over.
Then you put in the description travel time included, so
you know and don't accidentally leave even earlier. This note

(01:59):
that travel time is included is particularly helpful if anyone else,
like an assistant or your spouse, has access to your calendar.
Another approach is to create distinct calendar events for travel
to the event, the event itself, and travel home from
the event. So with this approach, there would be a

(02:19):
calendar event for six forty to seven for traveling two mirrors,
another for seven to eight thirty for book club, and
another for eight thirty to eight fifty for traveling home.
When you book the event initially, you can schedule travel
time to and from wherever you are likely to be. Then,

(02:40):
if you end up having an appointment elsewhere beforehand, or
if you'll be going somewhere else afterwards, you can adjust
your calendar events to reflect how long it'll take to
get to and from these new locations. Even if an
appointment is just on another floor at work, it is
not a bad idea to schedule in five minutes of

(03:00):
travel time because you cannot be in two places at once,
even at the same address. Now, I know this is
a bit of extra work, but it is frustrating to
be constantly running behind. It is frustrating to be the
person running behind, and it is frustrating to try to
work with or be friends with someone constantly running behind.

(03:24):
And even if you are normally running on time, putting
travel time on the calendar allows you to fully account
for how much time activities take, and that can keep
you from feeling rushed. No one likes to be rushed.
Travel takes time, so there is no point pretending it doesn't.

(03:47):
Put travel time on the calendar and your schedule is
a bit more likely to reflect reality. 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.

(04:14):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(04:36):
listen to your favorite shows,