Personal Movement Study
Measure recurring movement, relocate work, and delegate avoidable errands
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
The Personal Movement Study imports a manufacturing technique into everyday life. Track who moves, how far, and for what purpose during a representative period. Rank the largest movement costs, inspect the work causing them, and redesign the environment: move frequently used materials closer, batch destinations, prepare lists earlier, or delegate routine transport and purchasing. The aim is not to move faster but to remove unnecessary movement from the process. Martell illustrates the mechanism with factories that place raw materials nearer workers after measuring walking, then applies it to people who lose five to seven hours driving errands and to a home builder who spent half his day moving equipment instead of selling houses.
Origin
Martell adapted the manufacturing movement study—measuring employee walking and moving materials closer—to personal errands and small-business logistics.
Core principles
- 01Movement is a measurable process cost
- 02Observation should precede optimization
- 03Better placement can remove work without adding effort
- 04Routine logistics belong at the lowest capable level
How to run it
- 1
Measure movement
Track travel, walking, waiting, and errand time over a representative week. Capture purpose as well as duration.
Pro tip Use a phone timeline, calendar, or simple log rather than memory.
Watch out One unusual day may distort the diagnosis.
- 2
Rank the costs
Sort movement by total hours and recurrence. Start with the largest repeatable block rather than a minor annoyance.
Pro tip Separate necessary travel from avoidable backtracking.
Watch out Do not optimize meaningful walks, exercise, or social time as if they were waste.
- 3
Inspect the cause
Determine why the movement occurs: poor placement, missing preparation, scattered destinations, or work assigned to the wrong role. Fix the process cause rather than blaming the person.
Pro tip Ask what information or material could have been ready earlier.
Watch out Faster driving does not solve a badly designed process.
- 4
Redesign the flow
Relocate supplies, batch errands, prepare one list, arrange delivery, or assign routine movement to an appropriate person. Keep the change as simple as possible.
Pro tip Pilot one week before making a permanent arrangement.
Watch out Respect cost, safety, employment, and access constraints.
- 5
Re-measure
Track the same movement categories after the change and compare hours recovered. Keep the redesign only if it creates a real net benefit.
Pro tip Count coordination time and delivery cost in the comparison.
Watch out A solution that merely moves hidden work to someone else without fair compensation is not an improvement.
In the wild
A manufacturer tracks employee walking, identifies the worker covering the most distance, and observes which materials trigger the trips. Frequently used raw materials are moved closer to the workstation.
→ Walking falls and labor time shifts back to productive work.
A contractor logs repeated store trips and finds that missing morning preparation causes most of them. Materials are listed before work begins and a part-time helper handles one consolidated run.
→ The contractor recovers selling and project-management time while reducing duplicate travel.
Common mistakes
Optimizing before measuring
Guessing at the biggest movement cost can improve a visible annoyance while leaving the real time drain untouched.
Ignoring coordination cost
Delegation is not a gain if preparation and supervision consume more time than the errands saved.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for operators or households with repeated driving, purchasing, equipment movement, or back-and-forth tasks.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for rare travel or movement that is itself the valued activity rather than a process cost.
From the transcript
“I call it a um a movement study”
“they'll measure who's walking the most and then they'll go and see what they did and then put the stuff around them”
“most people don't apply that to their personal life and they don't realize that they spent 7 hours driving or 5 hours running errands”
From the episode
Episode 439: Dan Martell: How to Master Your Time and Turn it into Wealth Today
Dan Martell