There are several common mistakes that people are doing all the time related to transport and saving time. We are going to check these mistakes and see how to deal with them.

Mistakes

Many people think that transport always saves time. So they buy cars, flight or train tickets to transport themselves to a preferred location.

The first mistake is the selection of a transport type. Cars are the most popular way of transport in developed countries, so people choose them more and more often. However, sometimes alternative transport type may be better.

The second mistake is the fact that usage of transport always saves time. But people may save even more time if they will change their preferences and decide to work remotely.

Let us check these mistakes in detail.

Transport Type Selection

Each transport type has two criteria – the time needed to transport a person and the cost of transportation.

The first common mistake here is to consider only transportation costs without taking into account transportation time. Some types of transport, e.g., long train trips, may be cheap, but at the same time be significantly longer. The solution for this issue is simple – convert time into money, e.g., using some hourly rate, and calculate the total cost of the trip as a sum of actual transportation cost plus saved time compared to other types.

The second mistake is to ignore the additional time needed to use the selected transport type. It may be the time required to buy a ticket, time to get to the airport or train station, the time you can spend productively inside the transport (for example, to do some job). You should add all this time too.

The third mistake is to ignore related factors, like noise, general tiredness, the convenience of communication and infrastructure, and so on. We need to take into account all these factors and somehow convert them into time or money and add them to the total cost of a trip.

So, to choose the best transport type, you should consider all the items mentioned above and calculate the total cost using all of them.

Remote Work

There are surprisingly many types of jobs that can be done remotely, so you can save time by not using transport at all! You should consider if you can do your job remotely too. Here are several recommendations you can use to make this transition smoother.

1. You may try to do less important communication using online tools. It is usually can be done for short calls, status updates, and other regular activities. However, important meetings still have to be done face-to-face.

2. You may try to convert your business processed into digital form. Many tools and systems can help you to do that – ERP, CRM, issue tracking systems, etc. The main point is to maintain internal communication and pass information between the team members without direct contact.

These are more aspects of remote work, like customer management and financial reporting, which we are not covering here. And there are even more business-specific aspects that have to be handled to do the job remotely.

In general, every time you want to use any transport you should ask yourself two questions – whether you really need that, and what will be the best transport type for you. Answers to these questions can save you a lot of time and money and make your work more efficient from a long-term perspective.