Making the most of the commute

Commuting - it's the thing we all loved to hate. Currently I have about an hour journey each way (when the buses are running perfectly) on the bus into Brighton from where I live, and when I started doing this a year ago, I found it to be a bit of a drag, often waiting ages for non-existent buses off an unreliable timetable.

However I've figured out how to reduce wasted time to the minimum, and also make the most of what is essentially dead time that you are never going to get back.

• Pack your bag the night before - not only does this save time rushing about in the morning, but you are unlikely to forget anything you need in your sleepy morning state. Before too long this just becomes second nature, and I just stick my bag by the front door.
• Know the bus times ahead of time - I have an app on my phone that shows me if the buses are running late, and how many minutes they are away from my stop (through GPS tracking), so I don't waste time standing around, and can instead enjoy a morning cuppa before leaving the house.
• Do something productive in the morning commute - at the moment I'm working my way through a large list of skillshare classes - I'm finding design related topics I want to bone up on, and combined with some noise cancelling headphones and a mobile phone (to which you can sync classes for offline watching) I'm getting between 5 and 7 hours of learning a week out of what would be wasted time.
• Use the evening commute to unwind - I'll watch either Netflix (over 3G) or iPlayer (downloaded programmes) on the way home - often things that are just entertainment and not work/design related. I find this helps me unwind after a busy day, so when I get through the door at home my head is not still in work mode.

If you commute, do you have any things that you find useful? Let me know!

After seeing my friend Ben attempt to write more blog posts in November as part of National Blog Post Month (#NaBloPoMo) I thought I would try and write a few more quick and short posts for November - lets see how far I can go with this.