Are you tired of your daily commute?
Top Tip number 10: Reduce Your Commute
With a bit of planning, it is possible to reduce the amount of time you spend commuting. There are two main ways: the 4-day week, and tele-commuting full or part time.
The 4-day work week
Ease congestion, pollution and the amount of fuel you use by going to work only four days a week. No, I’m not suggesting you mitch off work! The four-day workweek is a movement that’s growing – fast.
In a four-day workweek, instead of working eight hours a day, five days a week, you work ten hours a day, four days a week. The time at work and the amount of work you get done stays the same, but with one day less at the office, your commuting costs and pollution go down 20 percent. Companies can save money by having four-day weeks — their energy bills are lower because their electricity consumption is less.
| Will your Boss Agree? If you want a four day work week, you need a plan that shows how flexible schedules will benefit the company. Be prepared to have a trial period. Most importantly, make sure your productivity doesn’t drop off, and be willing to put in 10-hour days when you’re at work. |
The 4 day week is becoming commonplace throughout the world. In the USA, Marion County, Fl. was one of the first to make it mandatory for all employees. Is it perfect? No. Customers don’t like having 4-day-a-week service, but they admit the longer opening hours during those 4 days, helps them a lot. Workers report being especially tired when driving home after a very long day, thus raising fears of increased traffic accidents, however, the 3-day weekend should help to offset this.
Telecommuting
If taking one day off from commuting per week is a good thing, taking five days off is even better. Telecommuting, or working from home, is growing in popularity. While not every job advocates telecommuting (you probably wouldn’t want your dentist to do it), many workers can do their jobs with just a computer and an Internet connection.
As the saying goes “work is something you do, not something you travel to”.
There are some drawbacks to telecommuting. Many managers fear a loss of control, while employees may feel disconnected (see my article on how to overcome home office isolation). The security of data held at home is an issue, and telecommuters are less likely to get promoted – leadership roles are often given to people who are consistently seen and measured.
The savings of telecommuting are potentially huge. According to the Telework Research Network (2009 figures), if the 40% of the U.S. population that holds telework-compatible jobs and wants to work from home did so half of the time,
- The nation would save 280,000,000 barrels of oil (37% of Gulf oil imports)
- It would be the equivalent of taking 9 million cars permanently off the road.
The potential savings to businesses is great too: they would have lower energy costs and happier workers and have to supply less office space.
The benefits of telecommuting show that the best green driving tip is not to drive at all.
Bonus!
OK, I lied. Here are some more useful tips – so there are more than 10 in this article.
- Plan your journeys to avoid congestion, road works and getting lost.
- Drive away immediately when starting from cold – idling to heat the engine wastes fuel and causes rapid engine wear.
- Check your revs – change up before 2,500rpm (petrol) and 2,000rpm (diesel).
- If you’re stuck in a jam, switch the engine off if you expect to be there for more than a few minutes. Cutting the engine will save fuel and reduce emissions.
- Use air conditioning sparingly as it significantly increases fuel consumption.
- Avoid short journeys – a cold engine uses almost twice as much fuel and catalytic converters can take five miles to become effective. Cycle or walk instead.
- Get your car serviced regularly to keep it running efficiently.
These 10+ tips are all designed to help you to save money – and as an added bonus, help the planet too. Even if you don’t implement them all, just putting some of them into practice will help.
See my other tips on saving money while driving
See my series on working from home – problems and solutions
More excellent tips on saving time and money during the weekly commute. Thanks, Clare!
Great bunch of tips for saving money, time and energy when it comes to cars and travel!
A 4 day work week has many advantages to save energy. The commute itself takes time away from the job. If you can telecommute you can work faster and more relaxed. More relaxed=more production.
Typically working a 12 hour day, the 4 day work week is a tremendous idea in general. In the 70’s in the UK when just about every Union you could think of was on strike, Ford Motor Company introduced a four day working week to circumvent the power and coal workers strikes. The surprising result was that quality went up and production did not decline. When I have a four day week, I really feel rested after the weekend and ready for the week ahead.