Saturday, March 14, 2020

7 cities with the shortest work commutes

7 cities with the shortest work commutesLots of things factor into your decision making when youre searching for a new job, and everyone has their own unique list of criteria to consider. Youll look at everything from job title and responsibilities to salary, perks, location, opportunities for growth, and more when youre deciding if a job opening is potentially a good one for you. After all, a new job is a major life commitment googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1467144145037-0) ) One element most people think about when deciding whether or not a potential job opportunity is right for them is the length of the commute. After all, you already devote a significant amount of your waking hours to work, so how much extra time you spend getting to and from your job matters.According to a recent TIME article, the average commute is just around 25 minutes each way, and it has a surprising number of effects on your healthdifficult commutes negatively affect your mood, happiness, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. They also lead to spikes in anxiety and depression, and can even lower your immunity and make you more susceptible to illness.While acommute-free job opportunity is ideal (the rise of telecommuting is actually making this possible for many people), if you do have to leave the house to go to work, most of us, if given the choice, would opt for as short of a commute as possible.The truth is, not all cities and commutes are created equal. Some cities are much more manageable and efficient in terms of average commute time, while others will leave you navigating an endless time-draining maze each day. Lets take a look at seven of the cities with the shortest work commutes, based on data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and individual reporting of average number of minutes spent traveling from home to work each day.Cheyenne, Wyomingthis city ranked 1 on the list of shortest work commutes, with the average worker spending approximately 13. 7 minutes to get to work each day.Columbia, South Carolinafollowing right behind is this 2 ranked short-commute city, where the average person spends about 15.1 minutes to get to work each day.Fargo, North Dakotafolks who work in this 3 ranked city have pretty manageable work commutes, which average at just around 15.5 minutes.Lubbock, Texasif youre looking for a short commute you cant do very much better than Lubbock the average work commute is right about 15.9 minutes each way.Charleston, West Virginiain plus-rechnen to being the state capital, Charleston is also home to pretty tolerable commute times, which average just around 16.3 minutes each way.Sioux Falls, South Dakotasave time for the rest of the things going on in your life by working in this short-commute city, where the average worker spends around 16.7 minutes to get to work every day.Billings, Montanalast but not least on our list of top cities with the shortest average commute is Billings, where the average person use s just 17.5 minutes of each day to get to work.There you have itseven cities that are known for having typically short commute times. If a short commute is important to youand with all of the evidence regarding how it affects your mental and physical well being it probably should beconsider pursuing job opportunities in these locations.

Monday, March 9, 2020

The Counterintuitive Scheduling Hack That Completely Changed My Life

The Counterintuitive Scheduling Hack That Completely Changed My Life A few years ago I had completely lost control of my calendar. In a newly created role on my sales team, I welches launching a new initiative at my company. As a result, I had over 15 people directly scheduling time onto my calendar to speak with their clients. While wanting to spend every possible minute client-facing, I quickly ran into two problemsI needed time to thinkabout the initiative what welches going right and wrong? What were the challenges and opportunities? What were the staffing changes we needed to make to betreuung and scale accordingly?I needed time to do the work I was reporting to the companys top executives, but was frequently completing important work like my sales projections and pipeline analysis late at night and always in a hurry. That wasnt my only homework I needed to follow up with all the clients I was jamming into my calendar and also do the follow-up work associated with all the inter nal meetings I was joining.Its counterintuitive, but the one scheduling hack that changed my life was a no scheduling rule. I took back control of my calendar and held the first and last hour of my workday for doing actual work. Here are four ways that using two daily do elend schedule work blocks changed my life1. I could quickly check things off my to-do list.It was so simple but by having dedicated work time, I could suddenly get through all the little things on my to-do list that I owed to myself or to others. For example yes, that email to your client looks great and here are my additions to the document youre sending over. Or, here are my edits to that slide deck for Fridays leadership meeting. By carving out time to get through my own work, I became an even better business partner to my colleagues.2. I had time for deep work.I had uninterrupted time to complete project work, to think critically and to simply complete tasks that required more than five or 10 minute bursts of a ttention. That was a game-changer.3. I reduced after-hours work (and got my evenings back in the process).Instead of catching up on to-dos or completing projects after hours, I was now doing them during core work hours. Often, because I held time at the beginning of each day, anything that came up at 6pm or 7pm could be handled first thing the next morning. By building that grace period into my mornings at the office, I significantly reduced the number of evening hours I spent on my laptop.4. I also reduced the end-of-day-scramble.As a working mother, this was huge. I was running into an issue where, without the do not schedule blocks, Id be back-to-back in meetings until 15 minutes before daycare pick up. The choices were either to scramble and frantically get something done in a hurry, be late to pick-up or give up my evening to get it done. The end of day do not schedule block reduced that end-of-day-scramble, allowing me to wrap up for the day more effectively and reduce my stre ss.With the use of my two daily work blocks, not only did my productivity sky-rocket, but I reduced my stress significantly and my engagement at work soared. The key to owning my schedule was embracing time to not schedule, a calendar hack changed my work life.