How I Reduced my Uber & Lyft Drive Time and Earned More

Driving for Uber or Lyft can be a great source of income, whether it’s your primary job or side hustle. It is not uncommon for drivers to head over to San Francisco for a weekend and come home with a few thousand dollars. Even though I drove a work van in the city for years and can navigate it well, this “weekend warrior” strategy is not for me. Instead, I utilize one little trick that has paid off tremendously and drastically reduced the amount of hours I drive.

This strategy may not apply to everyone given the following circumstances, but it works extremely well if you live in a major (or even semi-major) metropolis:

• I live in a popular downtown area
• The area is relatively small
• It includes a 20,000 capacity arena with all sorts of events

With a grid as small as Sacramento’s downtown area, it’s hard to make good money without having to make 10,000 small $3 trips. The average fare from one side of the grid to other is about $6.50, leaving the driver with nothing more than a few bucks. Learning this early on forced me to think of better ways to utilize my time.

The trick is simple: plug your iPhone in (or stream your Android), mirror your Uber Driver app to your computer and wait.

To mirror your iPhone on a Mac:

1. Plug your phone in with a lightning cable.
2. Open Quicktime Player.
3. Go to File > New Movie Recording.
4. Change the input source to your iPhone.

Change your Quicktime movie recording source to iPhone and open the Uber Driver app.

You’ve now got a perfect view of your area inside the Uber Driver app displayed on your Mac. Feel free to browse the web, do some writing or catch up on work. Since there’s no real lag between the iPhone and Mac, you’ll see surges in near real-time. When it hits, turn your app on, wait for a ping, head out and make money!

This strategy has allowed me to cut back on the amount of hours I drive while retaining high payouts.Ignore the poor design — I kinda suck at Google Data Studio.

If you’re interested in driving for Uber or Lyft, consider signing up using my links. We both get a bonus if you do!

I write other stuff like this at Nerdy Minutes. I also curate a brief, weekly newsletter that features articles similar to this from around the web.

How I Reduced my Uber & Lyft Drive Time and Earned More was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.