Are any of you non-essential folks out there missing your commute activities (ha, not the commute itself!)? Pre COVID-19, I didn’t commute much (usually three days a week), but I’m still grateful not to have to at all – I have a lot more free time. But I do miss the things I did during my commute times:
Monday (driving), 45 minutes: Radio on the way in, radio and karaoke on the way home
Wednesday or whatever office day (drive, train, walk) 4 hours: Radio (drive), reading (train), podcasts (walk)
Friday (driving), 45 minutes: Radio on the way in and out
Saturday sometimes (driving), 45 minutes: Radio on the way in and out
I’m reading less, since I don’t have that big chunk of train reading time (I use that four hours for sleep and working out). And I miss listening to our local classic rock station DJs. Thankfully they have an app and I tuned in for my entire run today!
They were doing a “Freeform Friday” where callers requests songs and someone requested “When the Levee Breaks,” one of my fave Led Zeppelin songs!
So, tell me if you miss anything about the commute, or nothing at all!
Thanks to the essential employees who are still commuting in!
The one thing I miss about my commute (80 minutes, 40 each way) is the time to listen to podcasts! I’m trying to listen to them in bed before I fall asleep, but I keep falling asleep WHILE listening.
And do you feel super far behind, then? I do, when I don’t keep up with my weekly podcasts! Then the app is all “we stopped downloading” and I am like “no, no, I want to listen, it’s just that my time has changed!” Ha. (That happened to me when I hurt my ribs in December – I listen to a lot of them when I run and had to stop running for two weeks and the app totally shamed me!)
I miss my commute “reading” and podcasting and music listening. I’m trying to listen to more music at home. Just takes effort to do. Weird to say that it takes effort to listen to music.
It’s not weird – I get it. We have the things we do when we are alone (listen to music and podcast) and when you are with your family, you don’t do them as much (at least, that’s how it is for me!).
These are exactly the things I miss about commuting. My city commute was a 1 mile walk to the Metra, 40 minute train ride and 20 minute shuttle bus ride OR an hour+ drive each way. I’d read & listen to music on the train and snooze on the bus (I get really bad motion sickness if I read in a car/bus) in the morning/talk to a work friend in the afternoon. When I moved to the burbs I really missed that automatic 2 miles of walking each day!
I love that all the radio stations are online now! I’ve been listening to 93.1 WXRT since I moved back to Ohio because I miss it so much.
That is one of the few sucky things about working from home, is how much less walking you get in so easily! Even though I only go downtown one day a week on average, I miss the walking too. My steps are sad on the days I don’t run.
Yes! It’s great! Do they have their own app or do you have to listen to it through a secondary app?
I miss listening to audiobooks! Libby keeps sending me The Dutch House to listen to and I have to keep requesting it to be delivered at a later time because I don’t really have the time to listen. I’m struggling enough to keep up with podcasts! So that’s what I really miss about commuting. My commute isn’t very long (maybe an hour round-trip), but it was prime audiobook listening time. I also miss driving around and listening to podcasts/audiobooks. Right now, I’m only driving to the grocery store once a week and that’s a 5-minute drive total, lol.
Ha, 5 minutes is not even worth starting anything, right? So are your reading habits a bit different now since you aren’t listening to certain books you’d prefer on audio? When are you finding time to listen to podcasts at home? I bet some people can do something else and listen to them, but I have to be moving or I tune them out!
Hmm, I guess I didn’t really have a commute, so I didn’t miss much from it. I do feel like I’m (surprisingly, to me) reading less because I’m using the “extra” time for other hobbies. (For example, I stayed up playing video games last night instead of reading a few pages before bed.)
One thing I’ve been doing more, which feels like a commute thing, is listening to the NPR “Up First” podcast to start my day.
You definitely had a commute on the days you went in! Didn’t you sometimes practice Korean?
Isn’t the whole concept of this “extra” time weird for us who already worked for home but do actually have more time since we don’t go out or do social things? It’s so bizarre. That is fun you were playing a game! Which one?
I should do podcast like that. I tried one that was similar and didn’t care for it – maybe “Up First” is better.
Yes! I’ve commented before on how this has been a disaster for my reading progress, but I also really miss the radio on my car commutes. I like the morning show on my morning drives a lot, and there’s a trivia quiz on my afternoon commutes that I also really like – I miss both of them! Of course, I could listen to the radio at my house, but…I don’t. Ha. That being said, I don’t miss commuting even a teeny tiny bit.
Isn’t it weird that we don’t listen at home? I think it would be too distracting while I work! So have you tuned in at all, or nada?!
You aren’t missing the commute whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! 😉