The average daily commute to work and back home is an hour. That means, on average, you spend 5 hours on the road a week. Or about 20 hours on the road a month. Or 240 hours on the road a year! What do many of us do while on the road? Most of us listen to music. Some start talking on their cell phones. Others feel the need to yell at every inept driver on the road. When you consider that most college students spend approximately 250 hours a year in the classroom to earn a degree, the true importance of those accumulated driving hours can be understood. Hours commuting to work should never be wasted, but instead become value-generating time for personal and/or professional development.
Over the years, I have amassed a large collection of audiobooks and courses. Whenever I get in my car for a 20+ minute drive, I make sure I have an audiobook CD ready to play. Just think about it. On a commute, you can have the education equivalent of a college lecture right there in your car, without doing anything extra.
People are often surprised that I can speak both Portuguese and Spanish and ask me where I learned to speak those languages. I tell them, “Inside my car.” I just listen to those foreign language courses every day to and from work and, having added nothing extra to my already busy schedule, I have taught myself two new languages.
The audiobook industry publishes many great titles for personal and professional development, and I encourage you to turn those hours of travel into hours of significant value for your overall self-improvement. If you spend your commute hours learning something of value, then in a 30-year career, you can earn the equivalent of seven or eight doctorates without changing a thing in your life. Take action on it today and go out and get your first audiobook and make it a regular travel ritual.