Any rideshare or delivery driving strategy has one main goal: Make the most money in the shortest amount of time possible. New drivers, especially, are curious to know about the many ways to do this. We’ve covered some of them in past blog posts like this one from July 2021.
In this blog post, we’re putting laser focus on a very straightforward, smart, and profitable way to achieve your goals for earning more money in less time: split shifts. Here’s what we’ll cover about this simple, but useful strategy:
- What is a split shift?
- How many ways can you split a shift?
- How do I know the best times to drive?
- How can I manage multiple driving shifts in a day?
What is a split shift?
For most of our lives, we’re pre-programmed to think that a “day’s work” is eight straight hours doing the same job. In today’s environment, thanks to the gig economy, that’s not necessarily the norm. These days, that old model doesn’t serve your needs or increase your opportunities to earn, especially when you’re a gig driver.
For instance, why would you want to drive eight hours straight when you don’t have a consistent base of passengers or customers in need of food deliveries over that period of time? There are few things that frustrate drivers more than waiting around for pings on the app to send them out to make money.
That’s why it makes perfect sense to drive in split shifts. With a split shift, you can still work eight hours per day, but not eight hours straight. Instead, you drive during the times when you’ll get the most business, and use the rest of your day or evening to do something else.
For example, you might drive the morning rush, take the afternoon hours to run errands, and then go back out for the evening rush and the flurry of activity when people go out at night. With delivery, you could deliver lunches, take some time away for personal activities, and then come back out for the dinner hour or the late-night noshing crowd.
There are many ways you can make working in split shifts multiply your earnings. Let’s look at some of them.
How many ways can you split a shift?
There might not be a million ways to do this, but there is an impressive variety of methods that you can consider, starting with rush-hour driving.
Rush-hour focus
As mentioned, when you’re on a driving shift, you need to be out when there’s enough business to make it worth your while. So, you can go out in the morning, and when traffic dies down, do something else while you wait for the evening rush. This approach will work best if you live in or around a place where there are lots of people going to work and/or school. It’s also important that you don’t mind driving in heavy traffic, often under pressure from passengers who have to get where they’re going on time.
Change hats – and apps
Another great way to pump up your earning power is to switch between rideshare and delivery, based on the best times to drive for both. For example, you could drive a Lyft or Uber shift for the morning rush, then switch over later in the morning for a DoorDash shift to scoop up lunch orders. Then, if you’re really feeling it, you could even throw in an Amazon Flex shift in the afternoon. Of course, you’ll have to sign up with (and qualify for) all the apps you want to use, but that’s a fairly straightforward process. This could be the best way to bank on getting good business during all the hours you’re available to work.
Mix driving gigs with side hustles
If you choose to work two or three hours in the morning, and two or three hours in the evening, you’ll have plenty of free time in the middle of the day. If you want to add even more variety to your life, think about throwing in some side hustles. Here’s a Gridwise blog post that focuses on the topic and provides more than a dozen ideas for additional ways to make money.
Blend in the graveyard shift
If you feel safe doing it, and can pick up the business that’s there for the taking, consider working late at night and into the early part of the morning. Even though it isn’t for everyone, working between midnight and 6 a.m. can be a good way to make big bucks. You can start off ferrying revelers back from the bars, and end your shift helping business travelers get to their early flights or train rides. Then … if you want to drive for a few extra hours later in the morning or early in the afternoon, you can easily do that. If you’re impervious to the obnoxious behavior of drunks and not averse to sleeping during the day, this driving combo could be perfect for you. But if you’re doing food delivery, you’ll probably want to stick to busier times of day, since not many people order meals at 3:00 a.m.
The ways you decide to juggle the hours with your part-time driving job will vary according to where you are and what else you’re juggling in your life. Things such as having a day job, caring for children or other family members, keeping a class schedule for your degree program, or running a fledgling business, will influence when and for how long you’re available to drive.
How do I know the best times to drive?
If you’re a new Uber driver, a new DoorDash driver, or a newb at driving for any other app, this is one of the first questions you’ll want to answer. Remember, just about anything you do depends on where you live, the kinds of businesses there are, and how many hospitals or universities are around you, as well as what the rest of your life looks like.
Until recently, drivers relied on trial and error to learn the best places and the best times to drive. Your apps will always show the “hot” areas, where business is brisk or where there is surge pricing or bonus pay being offered. The problem with depending on your apps is that these areas come and go faster than you can drive to them. Playing “whack-a-mole” with surge areas for your whole shift isn’t going to be the best strategy you can employ.
Now that Gridwise has created Where to Drive and When to Drive, you can have real information about the best places and hours to drive. Collected anonymously from actual drivers, the invaluable data you get from these Gridwise features will give you current and historical patterns that you can depend on. Here are some sample screens:
When you click on the Where to Drive icon on the Home screen, you can expand your options:
Along with Where to Drive, drivers can also reap the benefits of knowing When to Drive. Here’s how that feature looks:
Gridwise gives you all this and much more. With the ultimate rideshare and delivery assistant, you also get:
- Tracking for your earnings and expenses, displayed in easy-to-use graphs
- Airport information: arrivals, departures, and queue lengths at your location
- Weather: current information and weather alerts
- Traffic: traffic alerts
- Gas deals: join Gridwise Plus and get 10 cents off per gallon with Gridwise Gas
- Event information: everything you need to know about local events
- Easy access to the Gridwise blog, featuring delivery and rideshare driving tips galore
Download the app now and get these features and the knowledge that you’ll be driving with the ultimate assistant for rideshare and delivery drivers.
How can I manage multiple driving shifts a day?
Split shifts offer many advantages, but for some drivers, this technique may be slightly daunting. So much of what you do will depend on what the rest of your life looks like, along with what it’s like in the area where you live. If you’re in an urban area, there are certain patterns you can depend on, and you can usually figure on having several big events to work with each week.
If you live in a more suburban environment, your delivery patterns, as well as rideshare requests, will look different from how they look in big cities. This doesn’t mean you can’t make plenty of money, though. There are vast numbers of passengers looking for a lift home from the train station, as well as others craving an extra-large portion of lasagna from the local Italian eatery to feed a football game watch party.
You probably realize that organizing your business could be slightly more complicated when you drive split shifts. You’ll want to be meticulous about noting your expenses and measuring how well you’re doing on different apps and various shifts, to see how well your gig driving business is doing. You can use Gridwise to help you with this particular challenge.
You’ll also want to avoid getting burned out. It can be really tempting to drive two or three shifts, while also juggling school, your family, or another job, but it probably isn’t advisable. You have to be energetic and alert to do your driving gig, because, well, you’ll be driving. It’s a huge responsibility to take people in your vehicle, and it’s all too easy to get into an accident even though you thought you were only making a quick burger run for a delivery customer.
The very best thing about having part-time jobs driving is how flexible your hours are. Sure, you can schedule blocks of time with DoorDash, Grubhub, or Amazon Flex, but you don’t have to. Stay healthy, mind your need for sleep, and always remember how important it is to have quality time with your family and friends.
We hope this article gives you some ideas about how to make solid cash with split shifts. If you have other ideas, please leave them in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Gridwise Facebook page. And … no matter where or how much you drive, take the ultimate rideshare and delivery assistant with you.
