Schedule for sustainability

Sometimes we can change the sustainability aspects of our daily activities just by scheduling when they occur.  Some examples:

• If you have a standard hot water heater and if two or more members of a household will be using the same shower facility during the day, plan to take the showers one right after the other.  Water and energy are needlessly used while the hot water flows through the pipes to reach the shower head, so if this happens only once a day instead of two or three times a day, less water and energy are used. 
• Schedule lengthy indoor cooking activities for times when the air conditioner is not operating. 
• If you have flexibility in your schedule, plan appointments for mid-day when traffic is lighter.
• If you have the flexibility to change your commute time, experiment with routes and start times.  I found that by leaving 15 minutes earlier in the morning, I could reduce my total morning commute time by nearly 20 minutes, which reduced the amount of gas I wasted crawling through heavy traffic. 
• Instead of making several trips to run errands, see if you can group your errands so that you drive to a geographic area only once for multiple errands.   
• Water outdoor plants (including lawns) at night or very early morning when the water is less likely to evaporate before it soaks into the ground.
• Where I live, we have a lot of poor air quality due to air pollution.  During hot, sunny weather, signs on the highway advise us to schedule fueling our vehicles, mowing our lawns, and driving for times other than mid-day.  Ground-level ozone formation (which is different from the high-altitude ozone layer) increases during warm sunny weather depending on the level of ‘precursor pollutants’ present.  While the high-altitude ozone layer is very important for protecting life on earth, ground-level ozone air pollution has significant negative health effects.