Commutes for American workers are getting worse and worse. According to the latest figures from Gallup, the average time we spend traveling to work just keeps increasing. The average commute in the U.S. today is just shy of half an hour (26.4 minutes) — and if that doesn’t sound too bad, consider that “extreme commutes” of 1.5 hours or more saw the fastest growth rate in the study, shooting up 8 percent since the previous year studied. Meanwhile, the research shows that the lucky people who commute less than 10 minutes are becoming fewer and further between.
No matter how long your daily commute to the office is, that time adds up quickly. It’s easy to see that if you commute a half an hour to work and then back home again each day, you’ve got five hours per week (or around 20 hours monthly) to either kill or find a way to enjoy. Twenty hours is a big chunk of time, equivalent to a week spent on a part-time job. So why not make the most of this forced downtime while you’re held captive over wheels or rails by doing something you care about, that’s productive, that will relax you or that will help you get ahead in your career?
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Here are some ideas in each of these four categories to help you make the best use of your commute:
“You” Time
There are different ways to look at the minutes or hours you spend stuck in a vehicle going to work. You can either see this as lost time that’s basically wasted staring into space feeling bad that you’re trapped in the situation, or you can recognize the potential opportunity of “found” time. When you have a set schedule every week and you know you will be commuting for a certain amount of time, why not harness this window when you can’t do much else to give yourself a little “you” time?
Some obvious ways to use commute time for yourself — whether you’re going by car, bus or train — include:
— Listening to podcasts or audiobooks
— Catching up on radio news
— Enjoying your favorite music
— Using a Bluetooth headset to catch up with friends by phone
You might also consider some out-of-the-box ways to enjoy the trip, such as using the time for intentional focused thinking on specific personal or professional challenges, learning a new language through audio content or speaking your ideas into a digital recorder as you travel.
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Checking It Off
If your commute is hands-free because you’re riding public transportation or someone else is driving, then your commute can easily turn into productive time. You can bring your laptop along and tackle a wide range of tasks, from writing business or personal emails (which you can send later if you don’t have Wi-Fi on board), drafting a client report that’s due at the end of the day or doing some online research on your smartphone.
Calming Down
Morning commutes in particular are often associated with angst and road rage, especially if heavy traffic becomes a part of the equation. But being in your own quiet bubble in a car — or being transported by bus or subway without needing to worry about watching the road — are situations that both lend themselves to peaceful downtime if you let them. No matter how you’re traveling, you can listen to audio that’s designed to relax you, such as a meditation playlist. Ensconced in headphones on your bus or train trip, you can chill out to relaxing classical or jazz music — or even just listen to the sounds of silence and focus on your own breathing for a while.
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Getting Ahead
Feel like you never have time for that elusive “professional development”? If you have the average commute time of 26.4 minutes, that gives you 1,056 minutes monthly (nearly 18 hours) to devote to your career while in transit. Many of the ideas above can be channeled toward this type of mission, such as selecting audiobooks about your specific industry, listening to podcasts like TED Talks to keep up with business trends identified by key thought leaders and preparing written correspondence by smartphone or laptop if you’re on public transportation.
Don’t let your valuable commute time slide by unclaimed. Leverage the opportunity to take care of some things, whether personal or professional, that will make you feel better, help you keep up with your to-do list or open some doors.
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How to Make Your Commute to Work More Bearable originally appeared on usnews.com
