text: What I do to make commutes a little bit better • Home of Justin Visser
  What I do to make commutes a little bit better
  Jul 01, 2018 in BLOG
  I drive around a lot, whether that be for side-jobs like Uber and Skip the Dishes, driving back and forth to school (40-60 minutes), or even the many scuba diving trips around Ontario that can be quite long, I like to keep myself distracted with something other than music. I often find music can get a bit boring, but I'll admit I am not that into music. If music is your thing go for it!
  In this post I'm mostly just going to give a short list of what I use in the car to help me get there faster, but also just help me make long drives, especially in busy traffic less painful.
  I'll start off with mentioning music, because while I don't tend to listen to music on the longer rides, I do here and there if I am in the right mood or if the trip is shorter.
  Spotify is my goto music app simply because it gives me access to a lot of music, but more specifically it helps me find music to listen to. I am terrible with artist names, song names, etc… sometimes I don't even know which genre I am in the mood for. Spotify is quite helpful with the discover weekly and the playlists it suggests for me! Also as a Canadian student they give you a [good deal on the monthly subscription][1]!
  Pocket Casts is an app I find myself using a lot during my commutes. It's a very powerful yet easy to use Podcast listening app. It makes it very easy to find podcasts you like and follow them. I personally listen to my podcasts at a 1.8x speed as I find them slow sometimes, but that's all preference. It took slowly increasing speed to get to that. I used to not be a fan of podcasts, but with an app that makes it easier it definitely makes them more appealing. It's very quick to open the app and queue up some podcasts. Not fiddling around with anything or wasting time. Straight to the point. Consider giving it a try, there are podcasts that appeal to all types on there. There are also many other podcast apps you can try out that may better suit your preferences.
  _Smart Audiobook Player _is a good app for listening to audiobooks. Of course there are many other apps out there and this is just one of them. Getting a subscription to something like Audible may be a good choice as it makes purchasing and then listening to audiobooks super easy. I use this app as it supports playing audiobook files which I transfer over to my phone from my computer. For most people I would probably suggest Audible or Google audiobook option. However audiobooks are nice as you get to basically read/listen to a book while you're driving. You feel a lot more productive when driving, and at the same time also feel less stressed. You can just coast through traffic and not be as upset about the traffic jam you're. You've got a book to keep you entertained. It's like you're reading at home. And some books can have some pretty good narrators with sound effects and everything. Definitely can be enjoyable if you're a fan of books. You don't even have to be a fan of reading books either.
  Overall my main point is that you can do more than just listen to a radio station when driving. Especially since a lot of the time on a radio station is ads. With these kinds of formats you don't have that same kind of time waste, and feel more productive. Podcasts often have some ads in them, but they are typically pretty short and if you're listening at a faster speed they barely take up any time compared to the long radio station ad breaks.