Making the Best of a 1-hr Commute

Also adapted & published on Medium. 

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Let’s start with some quick math. 50 minutes twice a day is 100 minutes per day, which is 500 minutes a week, and 26000 minutes in a year. 433 hours is roughly the amount of time I spend in a year commuting to and from work.

Sure, taking into some reduction when I’m in a different city with a shorter commute — 20 minutes each way — and also my vacation time, it’s still about 315 hours or 13 days a year spent on a train or bus getting to and back from work.

Time is valuable, whether you use it to get some work done, “me” time, napping is totally up to you. But I think of these 13 days quite as additional time in my everyday life, 100 minutes I’ll never get back, and choose to make the best of it.

Mass transit being my chosen method of commute — I am talking of trains and buses running within cities, not those the suburban ones — for nearly a decade now, I’ve come to establish a modus operandi if you will.

While in no way comprehensive or constant, I’ve found several ways of occupying myself in these 100 minutes.

My day begins and ends with a nice cuppa (aka tea), held in one of my many trusty travel tumblers (unless of course I get lazy and decide to step into a cafe to grab a cup to go).

Keeping Sharp & Up-to-date

Total time: 10–40 mins, round-trip

News: I grew up with the news, literally so, and the habit of paying attention to the morning & evening news is ingrained in me. Reuters and BBC are my go-to sources for current and immediate news stories. A few others (NYT, Wired, NewYorker, Medium) come up on my feed for later perusal.

I use Feedly to manage my news feed, in addition to 2 native apps (Reuters & BBC) for ‘breaking news’.

Books: 40 minutes to 2 hours of reading every day can do wonders and that’s what I’ve engaged in most of the time. Usually with a physical, printed copy, but on occasion also on my Kindle. Audiobooks aren’t much to my liking because I get distracted with my hands having nothing to do.

With my reading speed at ~50 seconds/300 words, just a little more than the average of a page a minute, I can easily get through a book a week!

Getting Started for the Day

Total time: 5–10 mins, one way

Why not? A quick skim of my schedule for the day, emails and IMs from work is a simple task, especially when the start of my day, in the Midwest or Pacific Coast, signifies the end of day for the other side of the world.

E-mails: 5 minutes is usually what it takes me to mark things off for follow-up or discard. Labels and folders on Outlook mobile are easy to use for this purpose. Occasionally, I’ll switch over to Trello or Evernote to jot down an item to-do or just capture.

IMs: If you’re a regular user of Slack or Hipchat (or any new-fangled IM app) you know how noisy it can get! Certain starred channels take more of my attention than others, but I do try and catch up on happenings. At least in preparation for any morning meetings I’m scheduled to be in.

Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash

Learning Something: Languages & Lessons

Total time: 15-20 mins, one-way

Lots of research supports that a bilingual brain is better positioned to switch context, be alert, and generally improve cognitive health. While most language is learned within the first few years of development (I could fluently speak 4 languages by the time I was 10) I find it’s never too late to dabble in a new one.

When I took German lessons at the Goethe Institut, I’d peruse handy flashcards or refresh for a test, sometimes even scribble in some last minute homework, in less than 20 minutes.

Now, there’s Duolingo. I began with the free version and recently purchased the Plus to learn French. I also practice German.

Coursera allows you to download lessons, which is really convenient because I have even done homework for my music theory and psychology classes on a train!

Therapy: Travel, Retail & Cooking

Total time: 5–10 mins, one-way

Preliminary ‘research’ to find my next travel destination is rather easy with my tools: Google Flights (filtered by my preferred airline) and Expedia (4+ stars/rating, VIP+), and since I do travel quite often, and have very specific criteria, it’s quite easy to decide.

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

I’ll mull it over at some later point in time, but at least setting up alerts on certain flight routes helps narrow my choices. That I work in the travel industry helps, I suppose.

Shopping is quite the same thing. Visiting some of my favorite online retailers and using known filters to pop things into my cart, or transferring items from my lists on my Alexa app into my Amazon cart and hit buy takes all of 5 mins!

I also enjoy cooking & baking, almost as much as I enjoy eating out! Browsing recipes, normally with a few choice keywords hastening my searches, or scouring Yelp and Thrillist by city to find new restaurants and bars can become a never-ending chain of links.

Gym-time Research

Total time: 2–5 mins, one-way

I have to mention this one last bit because of the gym(aka swim)-rat that I am. Sneaking in a search to find new sets for my workouts, primarily swimming sets, at the start of the day allows me to plan my gym time accordingly, for either a pre-lunch or post-work visit. I’m prepared.

Sometimes, I’ll just spend all 50 minutes sipping my tea. Very rarely do I nap or strike up conversations, but it has been known to happen.

In any case, it’s time that is your own. Do with it what you will. Take a nap, take photos, go on social media, play a game, read, listen to a podcast, chat with your fellow commuters, pull out your laptop and work, look out the window at a busy morning/evening, or just stare out and gather your thoughts, be jostled about…

I’ve been doing all this a while now and though I don’t actively change my routine, it occasionally varies. One thing I know for sure though, I’ve grown to enjoy and value my commuting time. Naturally, this only lasts until I’m forced to drive myself everywhere :)

Photo by Jeremiah Higgins on Unsplash