Do you suffer from driver irregularity? How regular hours can help

One of the great things about ridesharing is the flexibility. But does our work and earnings suffer if we don’t stick to a regular schedule? I want to share a great video from Mark over at Uber Hints that’s all about the issue of setting your own hours.

Watch Mark’s video, then check out the video transcript below if you prefer to read.

Do you suffer from irregularity? If you do, it could be costing you money.

I’m Mark, with uberhints.com, and I’d like to talk about being regular as a driver. And what I mean by that is driving on a regular schedule. One of the benefits of being a driver with Uber or Lyft is that we can drive whenever we like. Unfortunately, what this often means to a lot of us that is that we just drive when we feel like it. And that’s okay, because that is one of the advantages.

It also means that we might be leaving a lot of money on the table because we don’t learn anything from our experiences. We just randomly go out there, we take the rides that come our way, and we either have good days or bad days.

I challenge you to drive on a regular schedule

So, here is my challenge to you this week: Drive on a regular schedule. If we force ourself every day to start driving at 7:00 AM and drive until 4:00, or maybe start driving at 4:00 PM and drive until midnight, whatever our schedule allows, we’re going to learn a lot of things.

When I started driving on a regular schedule, many things became apparent to me. On Monday morning, for instance, people are often heading to work. There are also commuters who travel out of the city for the week who head to the airport. And I found that there was a pattern to when people traveled to the airport. In my area, an airport drive is good for around $30. It was really nice for me to start the week off with one or two airport runs and before I even got midway through the morning, I already had $60 in fares racked up. That was a really nice benefit.

Here’s another example. In my area, there is a correctional facility where the inmates go on work release. During the day, they can go out to their job. I got to talking to one of them, and as we’re driving, he was telling me a little bit about his lifestyle and how he has to go to work every day, and it occurred to me that every day at 3:45 he’s sending out a ping. It was a guaranteed ride for me. So, I could move into that area every day around that time, and if I got pinged by someone else, that was great. I had a ride. But if not, I was almost guaranteed that his request was coming through at 3:45.

New patterns that you will notice

Another thing that you’re going to discover are patterns in driving. Some of these are going to be at a certain time of day, the highways or the roads are going to become very busy. You’re going to find that there are some roads that are not going to be as passable as others. It’s going to improve the way that we drive because we’re going to be able to get people from one place to the next more quickly if we understand the times of days that traffic might be congested in some areas over others.

You’re also going to learn that there are patterns in surges. Surges are going to happen in different areas, different times of day. But if you’re not up driving at a regular time every day, you’re going to miss all these things. There’s a difference between something happening one time, and something being a pattern. The only reason you’ll recognize the pattern is if you’re out there every day driving at the same time.

One thing I discovered is if I started driving at 6:30, as opposed to 7:00 AM, that first half hour rarely was productive. So, why would I get up a half hour early if I rarely got a ride? Once 7:00 hit, all of the morning commuters were putting in their requests, and wanting to head to work. So, I learned not only good times to drive, but times that I would be wasting my time out there when I might be able to do, to be doing other things.

Likewise, after the morning commute, I found between about 10:00 to about 11:30, things really slowed down. At 11:30 it picked up again as the lunch crowd wanted to head out. So, if I had things to do, personal things, between that time of 10:00 to about 11:30, I could get those things done knowing I wasn’t missing out on a lot of work.

A schedule helps you find the best times to drive

For the next week, set a regular schedule and adhere to it. And I think what you’re going to find, number one, your profits are going to increase simply because you’re out there, not when you want to be out there but when you should be out there. And number two, you’re going to start to recognize patterns: Patterns in ridership, patterns in traffic, patterns in surge rates.

If you’ve been watching my videos, and if you like what you see, please give me a thumbs up. I would love it if you’d subscribe, and leave some comments down below. Let me know what you think. Do you drive on a regular schedule? Do you find that it’s productive for you? I hope so. I’m Mark with uberhints.com.