Refactor your Life

My life has always been filled with observation. It really just is who I am. Always watching my surroundings whether it be people or just environment. You know the guy who just sits back and watches how others interact and react to situations (hopefully I didn’t just paint too creepy of a picture for you). In a way I feel it keeps me informed sometimes better than speaking directly with someone.

With this mind set also comes a neurosis. I observe and test theories about my day to day interactions which result in many patterns that become habit. This may seem odd to some but appears efficient to me. I wanted to write about this because I feel that many people also get stuck in a pattern. Not because they’ve tested their options, but because they may have been presented with one option and that’s all they’ve known.

I have found that by making small changes in your daily routine, some surprising and significant gains can be had for the taking.

Take for example, my commute home from work. I discovered that if I exit the train at the stop before the one nearest my home, I arrive at my home 10 minutes sooner than I normally would. Why is this? Well I made some concious observations and then deviated from my normal pattern to experiment.

Here is the setup for this particular situation:

The train station nearest my home is the final destination for the train. Due to that, it travels considerably slower from the previous stop to its final resting place for the evening. One day I decided to go out of my way to park at that previous station so I could get off the train there during my evening commute. My drive home is only about 3 minutes longer but I can still get home right around the time I would normally be getting off the train at my normal destination.

Ok that may not impress you but to me that means 10 more minutes with my kids added to the short amount of time I get to see them each evening. This means a lot to me.

I have other examples but I’m hoping that you get the picture. So my challenge to those reading is to try it. Start out with some small day to day annoyance. Observe what the problem is, think about how it could be made better, and try it. Do this for three days with a different solution each day and find what works the best for you. Don’t be discouraged if what you try one of those days doesn’t work out or that it takes longer to accomplish some task, you’re still going to learn something from that situation.

If you take on this challenge, please share your experiment and result in the comments. I’m eager to see how each of you has made your day better.