Time management

The thing is, as a company otr guy you won't have the leeway to decide where you get to take a few hours off. Occasionally sure, but not regularly enough to plan on it.

That load to bozeman for example: where will you get the time when you deliver at 6 am and reload 200 miles away that afternoon? When the last bit of freight comes off the truck and you get the signed bol in hand you are going to need to put it in the wind for your next load appointment.

You keep saying you dont need to make a lot of money but that doesn't matter. Your employer invested well over 100k dollars in that truck and is going to expect it to generate x $ in revenue.

 

Their is a lot of stuff that burns up you 14 hour day. You will probably find no extra time for fun stuff. So driving has to be enjoyable. Just taking a shower at truck stop will take 1 hour. You better hope you don't have to wait in line 30 minutes for a shower room to be cleaned. Now your down to 12.5 hours. You want stop for lunch, that 1 hour. Now 11.5 hours. You want to stop for bathroom break maybe 2 time a day at 15 minutes each. That another 30 minutes. Now your down to 11 hours.
Now you have to really watch your time because every time you stop now is cutting into you 11 hour driving time. If you have drive 500 miles today you can't be stopping much more. Because you only have 11 hours to get that 500 miles in. That includes traffic jams.

Maybe you skip the afternoon shower and save that 1.5 save that 1.5 hours and take shower during your 10 hour break. Then you need a shower credit for that truck stop or you need to pump 50-60 gallons of diesel to get a free shower. Then parking can be a problem. If you can't get a parking spot then no shower.

 

Ya gotta take a 34 somewhere. If you want to do fun stuff, you plan around that. Add a day or two if dispatch is ok with it.

 

Customers, mechanics, etc also use your 14 Hours and usually they don't know or won't tell you how much they will use. That's the frustration of trucking. Everyone that quits their work day when the clock strikes the magic hour will spend YOUR clock like it's free money. All you have to do is sacrifice sleeping, eating, using the restroom, or whatever so that one office hero can make the other office hero happy or prevent answering/sending an email or phone call. They think your job is to squeeze "10 pounds of sugar into a 5 pound bag". After you do that your time is free. "I just need you to drive 23 hours in the next 2 days, and then you can take the rest of the day off."

When they go home for the day or the weekend you disappear and they expect you to be ready for another 70 hours of drive/work by 5am Monday.

 

Don't over think this too much.