The easy way to save the world. Just sleep in!

There’s lots you can do to save the world.

  • You can switch to only eating macro-biotic myco-protein
  • You can compost nearly everything
  • You can holiday locally and never get on a plane
  • You can turn down the thermostat and turn off those lights.

But surely there’s an easier way? Sleeping in, you say? Tell me more…

Sleeping in is a surprisingly powerful weapon for the eco-warrior

At GOFAR we always try to improve driver behaviour and we run driving experiments to see what really works, tracking our driving with our handy GOFAR gadget.

You can buy one here. No really. I insist. It pays for itself. Anyway – back to bed.

In our latest experiment I tracked my regular commute for a month, and with my boss’s permission I came in at different times after 7am, 8am, 9am and 10am.

GOFAR Driving Experiment 2: Commute time

Finding 1: It’s better to sleep in than get up early

I instinctively knew getting up early was a mug’s game, and now science has proved that sleeping in is better.

The worst time time leave was 8am. That saw me stuck in traffic for 40 minutes. Getting up at 7am helped (commute time dropped to 33 minutes but by 10am it was only 21 minutes. Sleeping in almost halved my time in traffic.

Finding 2: I felt way less stressed at work

I’ll be honest – I worked from home rather than sleeping in, but it was still nicer than sitting in traffic, because traffic is stressful. At 10am (and even leaving at 9am) I was able to mostly keep moving nearly all the time.

Result? I arrive more relaxed – plus I’d already knocked out a few tasks at home. Result!

If you’ve got to be opening a shop or there’s a meeting scheduled, then you need to get in on time, but many knowledge workers have way more flexibility than they seem to realise.

Ask you boss if you can come in later – I guarantee you’ll be in a more more productive mindset.

Finding 3: I’d cut out almost half a tonne of pollution

My emissions car’s emissions at 8am are 46% higher than if I leave at 10am. Over a year I’m saving almost half a tonne of CO2 emissions.

My commute is only 15km in and out. If your commute is 30km you could save a tonne a year without leaving your bed. I’m shouting out to you 1 million women!

If you got this far, then you might also want to check out The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World. It’s from the UN no less!

Could you do better than me? Test your driving and your car with GOFAR.

Start saving fuel and improving your car’s performance.

Instructions for repeating this experiment

I only did 26 days on this experiment, but the conclusions are pretty clear and very consistent with published research too.

  1. Buy a GOFAR so you can automatically track your driving and emissions
  2. Get your bosses permission for the experiment
  3. Export your driving from GOFAR and run the numbers.

If you’ve got an idea for an experiment, we’d love to hear about it at hello@gofar.co

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