Here are my final (at last, I hear you say) suggestions of great activities to keep you busy on your daily commute to work.

5. Make money 

‘I do some academic proofreading work, for which I get paid.’

Me in Turkey

This idea of making money from your commute time is easier said than done, but it is possible. There are plenty of people doing it, including me. The only thing standing in your way is you.

As I mentioned previously, I have a sideline ‘business’ in proofreading, editing and translating academic papers for members of Turkish academic community. I do a lot of this work on the bus going to work. This not only provides me with a small amount of extra income, it also helps me improve my Turkish, read interesting academic articles and have a better idea of the contemporary research being conducted in my field.

6. Learn a language

‘I practice sight recognition of kanji using Ankidroid for my Android phone. It’s a great little program, although it’s really dependent on the quality of the flashcards.’

Chimp Guevara in the UK

How many of us actually practice what we preach and use this part of our free time to develop our second language skills? Have you ever seriously thought about learning a language during your commute? We always tell our students (don’t we?) that you don’t need to be sitting in a classroom to learn a language. If you devoted the 30 to 60 minutes of commute time to learning a language per day, you will make progress.

Commuting can seem like a boring and horrible part of the job, but if you really think about it, it’s an opportunity for you to do incredible things.

Thank you for sticking with me through my posts today. Tomorrow I'll be taking a look into a bit of theoretical stuff. Please join me again!