It’s the time again to go to work. How do you usually go to work? How long is your commute? For me, it usually takes about 45 min to 1 hour. I know some people that takes about 2 hours or more per trip. Since commute is a must, how do you usually tackle the commute?

Commute can be a boring activity and it can be fun too. It depends on how you prepare for it. Here are a few tips that I learn during my commute.
1. Prepare for the commute.
If you’re driving, sometimes it is stressful when you realize you are late and you almost ran out of gas. If you take public transport, sometimes you can’t predict what happen on the transportation. It could happen that the bus or train breaks down at that particular time out of any other day. Are you prepared? This is the time when you will need to do before you can do the fun stuff at work. So be prepared. You can learn something during your commute, exercise (by riding bicycle to work), or do some errands that you can do in the commute.

2. Enjoy whatever comes in your way
No matter how prepared you are, there will be time when something goes out the plan. And it is frustrating. I know for you who are a planner, this is unacceptable. But since it happened, might as well enjoy it. It is hard for me too to enjoy the commute, when i’m so tired and just want to reach home as soon as possible but because of this (whatever this is), i can’t. But think it this way, what can you do in this situation to improve it? Is there something that you can do at this moment? For me, sometimes I write during my commute, so this out-of-plan time is fine as I have a bit more time to focus and write rather than the temptation to watch TV or something else.

3. Decide what you want to do
I learn the hard way for this. I want to make all trip is a learning trip. So no matter going to or from work, i want to learn something. Be it listening to podcast, reading a book, etc. If you enjoy that thing, that’s good. Sometime I feel burn out because I feel too tired to do that. My mind just went blank. So after some thought and advice, I learn to decide which one to focus more. I consider myself as a morning person, so I will use my morning commute to learn something and my night commute as something light when I feel tired. Which kind of person are you? Pick the one that you have more energy to do something better and those with less energy to do something light. Even maybe playing some candy crush or take a power nap if possible.

So what do you usually do during your commute? Doing this thing might not reduce the commute time, but it will make your trip to be more enjoyable. I’m sure there are many other things that can drain your energy and make you stressed out, so why not choose different path to be joyful in the process. There a lot of activity that you can do during your commute. Be creative and do the one that you know you can do.

Question: knowing that there are other things that you can do during commute? What do you usually do during your commute? Or what do you wish that you do on your commute?

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. – Charles R. Swindoll

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. – Psalm 16:11 (NIV)