When you commute an average of three hours a day, you soon start to feel like most of your life is eaten up by travel. Traveling that far to a less than exciting job makes the entire matter even more depressing. It’s easy to see the point of traveling for ten-twelve hours to an exotic location for an even more exotic job, but getting on the road, bus and train for your day to day office-grind is not the most stimulating.

If you are one of those people who feels like 15 hours a week of time-waste (that’s like a part-time job!) is too depressing for words, but a shorter commute or other job is out of the question, then it is time to spice up your travel.

Eliminate the waste
Feel better about your commute by actually making it a productive time of the day. Although you can’t do laundry, spend time with the kids or respond to emails, there are other things you can do. By making it a time you are doing something for yourself, you can at least come to terms with the time spent traveling and even begin to enjoy it (a little).
Here are some ways to get productive while on the move:

Audiobooks
No time to read? Listen to your books on tape! Nowadays it’s more like ‘books on mp3′. There are a bunch of online resources for audiobooks, but the most straightforward would be Audible.com. If you like the classics, there is the open source (FREE) option of librivox.com. Librivox literally stands for ‘free voice’. The books are recorded by volunteer readers, and made available as free audiobooks online.

Learn a Language
Always wanted to learn how to order a coffee in Italian? No time for courses (really, who has the time these days!?), then audio-courses are a great solution. You’ll learn pronunciation , vocabulary and grammer in one. Find an audiobook that you might like and download it to an MP3 player. Audible.com has hundreds of language learning audiobooks available, and what is so great about this site is the fact that they let you listen to a sample of each book before you purchase. Listen to them all to see whether someone’s voice annoys you, or if you feel the book is too advanced or too simple for your needs. “That’s how I found the book that was right for me to catch up on my French,” says Angela K., e beginners student in French. “I am using the Michel Thomas method, it’s different than other audiobooks because it teaches you the language, not just fixed sentences,” she says, “and that works for me.”
At a bookstore you don’t get the chance to listen to the CDs, which gives Audible a major advantage over the conventional brick-and-mortar store.

There are also language podcasts you can subscribe to for free to boost your language learning. Try Radio Lingua, who produce podcasts such as the Coffee Break French language podcast.

Catch up on the News
Find a podcast you like and stick to it. You can catch up on world news, stocks and other programs on your iPod. Just get into the habit of plugging it in each morning or evening to download the latest programs, and you’ll see how fast time will start flying by. Browse iTunes or podcastalley.com for interesting shows.

Meditate
Do not attempt this if you drive to work! However, if you take public transit this might be just the time to zone out for a little while and meditate. As long as you don’t strike a pose in the middle of the train aisle and hold on tight to your belongings, you should be fine.