Dear Friends and Family,
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but you can kill dead time. Sometimes, it's a matter of thinking of it a different way. For example, let's say I need to drop P off at school and pick P up at school every day. And, let's say I need to run to Target to pick up stuff. Common sense says I should either tack it onto drop-off or to pick-up. And, you'd be right, most of the time. How do you decide between tacking it onto drop-off or pick-up? That's where it depends upon a lot of things.
For example, it depends upon what else do you have going on in the day. If you something shortly after drop-off, going to Target might be just the thing to kill what would otherwise be dead time. But, if you have something mid-day, going to Target after drop-off could create dead time. It also depends upon how long you think Target will take. If you're not sure, and you try to do it right before pick-up, then you need to leave a buffer which inevitably leads to dead time. Another thing to consider is the location of Target to school and school to home and how predictable travel times are. The more predictable travel times are the less dead time you'll have.
So, for example, yesterday, I picked P up from school. We had four things we needed to get done - lunch, park, school video, swim class. We could have gone to the park for a picnic lunch like we did yesterday and checked two items off of our list. But, then, we'd be stuck with potential dead time since the drive to swim class is highly variable. And, where to squeeze the video in?
Instead, we came home for lunch and video. Then, we drove out to a park by P's swim class. The drive from there to swim is less variable since it's close to swim class. We got to the park when we got to the park. Then, we played until 35 minutes before swim. We drove to swim, parked, and changed. P had about 10 minutes before her class began, but that's way better than 10-25 minutes before class.
We killed dead time! And, the Target example? Nine times out of ten, you're better off going right after drop-off since then the variability of how long the trip will take doesn't matter. Try to have a flexible thing, like park before a timed task like swim or drop-off. That's how to kill dead time.
Cheers!
mouse
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but you can kill dead time. Sometimes, it's a matter of thinking of it a different way. For example, let's say I need to drop P off at school and pick P up at school every day. And, let's say I need to run to Target to pick up stuff. Common sense says I should either tack it onto drop-off or to pick-up. And, you'd be right, most of the time. How do you decide between tacking it onto drop-off or pick-up? That's where it depends upon a lot of things.
For example, it depends upon what else do you have going on in the day. If you something shortly after drop-off, going to Target might be just the thing to kill what would otherwise be dead time. But, if you have something mid-day, going to Target after drop-off could create dead time. It also depends upon how long you think Target will take. If you're not sure, and you try to do it right before pick-up, then you need to leave a buffer which inevitably leads to dead time. Another thing to consider is the location of Target to school and school to home and how predictable travel times are. The more predictable travel times are the less dead time you'll have.
So, for example, yesterday, I picked P up from school. We had four things we needed to get done - lunch, park, school video, swim class. We could have gone to the park for a picnic lunch like we did yesterday and checked two items off of our list. But, then, we'd be stuck with potential dead time since the drive to swim class is highly variable. And, where to squeeze the video in?
Instead, we came home for lunch and video. Then, we drove out to a park by P's swim class. The drive from there to swim is less variable since it's close to swim class. We got to the park when we got to the park. Then, we played until 35 minutes before swim. We drove to swim, parked, and changed. P had about 10 minutes before her class began, but that's way better than 10-25 minutes before class.
We killed dead time! And, the Target example? Nine times out of ten, you're better off going right after drop-off since then the variability of how long the trip will take doesn't matter. Try to have a flexible thing, like park before a timed task like swim or drop-off. That's how to kill dead time.
Cheers!
mouse
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