Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Optimizing My Life

As a software developer, I spend a good deal of time thinking about and working on optimizing things to work faster or smaller whether it's processing cycles or memory footprint or file size. My current optimization effort is being put towards my morning and evening commutes. This involves traveling several different routes at different times, listening to the radio reports for major traffic problems, and discussing with co-workers the various routes that are available. After just over a week of testing, the current optimal route seems to be getting on I-35 North as soon as possible and exiting to highway West 290/71 then to 360 which leads to the office. I tried a lot of the back roads but with the school traffic plus work traffic, they are very congested. Unless 35 is at a standstill, it will usually be a faster and more stable commute. 290 traffic seems to flow pretty well because it is 4+ lanes and an easy exit onto 360. Once on 360 there are about 3 lights to go through, but they haven't been too bad so far.

I find myself optimizing other little areas of my life. For instance, at breakfast, I won't pour my glass of milk before warming up my hot pockets in the microwave. I'll do that while they are heating. That way I'm not standing around waiting for 1 minute 45 seconds. By using the down time in one activity to complete another, I've saved about 15-20 seconds of my life. I also like to optimize my entertainment. I will often watch TV and play on the computer at the same time. That way I double my entertainment value for the amount of time I have. Granted I don't get to concentrate on either one as much, but overall it works out.

No real point to this post. Just something I was thinking about. Do you try to optimize your life? If so, how?

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