Tips For Time Management

What they said. Basically you call their reservation hotline, tell them which location you want to park at, what date, and give them a credit card number. They give you a confirmation number. You pull in, walk into the fuel desk, give them your confirmation number, and they have a porter escort you to your spot. You can reserve a spot several days in advance, and you can reserve for more than one day if you want. The spot is all yours from 4 pm until 3 pm the next day.

I wish more truck stops would start doing this, because it has saved my butt on numerous occasions.

I have also received a free bottle of water with my reservation.

I've read here in numerous posts about needing time management. Can anyone give any tips, suggestions, and/or examples of time management?

Thanx, Mark

"Keep the left door closed" is a common saying in the industry regarding time management. It basically means keep your butt in the drivers seat!

I remember being forced to pay for the reserved parking at a TA on I-81. I pulled in late at night maybe 10pm. No spots open except pretty much ALL of the reserved ones. I did not want to pay $12 or whatever it was so I "created" a spot. You know we all do it, I just parked at the end of the line of spots.

Was not blocking anyone in, was not making it hard for anyone to swing around me, was perfectly fine. I went to sleep I was exhausted. 2 hours later someone is knocking on my door very loudly. I open my window and it's the manager of the TA telling me I can't park there and I have to pay for a reserved spot. I put my shirt on and drag myself inside to pay... I did get a "free" bottle of water lol.

Then I had to start the truck and move it to one of the reserved spots. After all that I went back to sleep.

I avoid TA at all costs because of that experience. Plus Schneider and US Xpress (the 2 companies I worked for) don't fuel at TA anyway, so no reason for me to stop there.

I have also received a free bottle of water with my reservation.

Yeah, that's supposed to come with the deal, but not all of them remember it. I usually don't make a big deal about it when they don't simply because one 20 oz bottle of water isn't worth a stink. Although one night I pulled into the Petro in Knoxville, and I guess the gals inside were feeling generous or whatever because they told me to just pick whatever water I wanted and help myself to a couple of hot dogs if I was hungry. So I got to go back out to my truck with two free dogs and a 1 liter of Dasani.

Wow, that's interesting. Paid, reserved parking.

I wonder why the heck they don't do that on the Interstates? Why don't they let private companies buy land, setup lots, and charge a few bucks for truck parking? It's not like you're always going to need to pay for parking. Most of the time you'll be able to schedule your runs in such a way that there's parking available somewhere when it's time to park. But on those nights when you need to run until Midnight you would know for a fact that when your time is up there will be a place to park.

I haven't seen a Love's or Pilot/Flying J that does the paid reserved parking. I assume TA and Petro do it because they need the extra revenue to offset lower revenue from the rest of their business. Most of the time even when pulling in late at night I never saw the reserved spots filled up, most were empty.

I haven't seen a Love's or Pilot/Flying J that does the paid reserved parking. I assume TA and Petro do it because they need the extra revenue to offset lower revenue from the rest of their business. Most of the time even when pulling in late at night I never saw the reserved spots filled up, most were empty.

It's not that they are trying to make up for lost revenue. They are opening up and taking advantage of a source of revenue that is there. Most TA and Petros are full at night or over the weekend and if they can make a little money then so be it. I can't get mad at them for it. It's a business and this is just another way for them to tap into the money that's out there.

Not blaming them for doing it. I was just mad they made me pay for it that night lol.

Are you saying truck stops are starting to setup reserved parking spots that you can pay for in advance????

TA Reserve-It Parking

Petro Reserve-It Parking

There is no telling how long I would have been driving and not knowing of these "perks" if not for being a member of Brett's Book I was looking for truckingtruth.com link,plug the book just as good!