Occasionally I ride the bus to work. Its a bus that doesn’t run all day, and it only comes a few times an hour. If you miss it you could be standing on the corner in the rain and cold for 30+ minutes. I’ve memorized the “standard” time I should leave to catch my regular 7:48am bus, but not any other scheduled times. Sometimes I need to catch an earlier bus for an unexpected meeting.

iPhone apps don’t reliably predict the arrival of the bus, and it takes work to pull out my phone and check when the next bus arrives. I also need to mentally calculate a 2-4 minute walk.

Coming home I have the same problems. The bus stop is outside and open to rain. I have a longer distance to walk, and an elevator ride which takes 3-4 minutes if people get on/off. I also get people grabbing me to chat as I walk toward the door.

I needed a simple and quick way to see the next scheduled bus departure time. Because I have an analog watch I wanted one that reflected my way of thinking about time–the position of the hands on my watch. I combined all this information into a graphic that gives me all the morning and evening departure times for the two stops that matter to me.

I added a visual padding for the window of time I had to leave. The black section means I can’t make the bus even if I’m running. The middle color is the ideal time to leave because I won’t end up waiting all that long. The lightest shade gives me time to start packing up.

I use this schedule constantly. My morning routine is moderately predictable, but by evening one is anything but. I have a graphic on my phone and posted at home and work. They have allowed me to be a lot more relaxed about my commute.