I can’t really go into much detail about my job here, but this time of year is considered to be our “busy” time of year.
Part of that involves putting in longer hours, including having to get into the office earlier in the morning.
For me, this seriously extends my morning commute. The drive from McKinney to downtown Dallas is bad enough in normal traffic. In rush hour traffic, it can really test a person’s patience.
I learned a couple of years ago one of the few things that helps me get through this time is to listen to something other than music. Anything that helps to take your mind off the fact that you’re going to be stuck in traffic for the next hour and a half or so is very helpful.
I tried podcasts, and they’re okay.
But, as with long road trips, I really prefer audiobooks. Like listening to music, it allows my mind to wander, but it’s a more focused type of wandering – as opposed to just thinking about bits of everything that comes to mind while listening to music.
Plus, in other goals, I’m really trying to make more of an effort to read more books overall. I have plenty of books to read in the evenings. Listening to audiobooks helps me towards that goal.
In four weeks, I’ve already gone through four books, and I will probably post reviews of them here at some point. They’ve all been a bit different. Three were new. One was an audio version of a book I’ve read 20 years ago.
I can’t recommend audible.com highly enough for finding audiobooks. The website is still a bit clunky for just browsing through books. Sometimes, I find Amazon easier to search for books, and then switch to Audible once I have found something that interests me.