Benefits of public transport - Become more patient

Photo by loop_oh

This post is part of a series of posts about the benefits of public transport.

Granted, the first weeks of taking the bus can get a little bit hard. You miss the bus and have to wait for the next one. Your bus is late, and you have to wait longer than expected. Such things always made me angry, and on some days I thought about giving up on public transport and use my car again. But I decided to go on, and today I'm glad I did.

Missing the bus is annoying. But after some time I recognized I couldn't do anything about it. So why waste any energy on being angry? I now try to make the best of this time. There are so much things I can do on my commute, missing the bus simply gets me some extra time. I'll be at the office soon enough, working for hours - some minutes of waiting won't make much of a difference. In fact, there are days when I'm glad when it takes a little bit longer. That's when I got a really thrilling book from the library...

Not only did I become more patient on my commute, I'm now more patient in any situation. I've been pretty impatient some years ago, but my daily commute with the bus showed me that getting nervous about a lost minute won't change anything. And it definitely won't get any better when I get angry...

Benefits of public transport - More time

Photo by tallkev

This post is part of a series of posts about the benefits of public transport.

We have already learned that using public transport can make your life more stress-free. As soon as you enter the bus, you no longer need to care about traffic and all the stress it adds to your life.

This brings us straight to another benefit of public transport: You've got more time for yourself. This may sound a little bit strange because we all tend to think that we have got to get to work as fast as possible. But have you ever asked yourself why you need to get there so fast? Because the time you spend in your car is - for the most part - lost time. You have to concentrate on the traffic. The only thing you can do is listen to the radio, unless you're one of those careless people who think it's safe to read the newspaper and make a phonecall while driving a car.

When you're using public transport, you can do a lot more things...

• You can read a book or a newspaper - didn't you always want to read more?
• You can plan your day, with the pen you always carry with you.
• You can listen to music, audiobooks or podcasts (even video!)
• You can play games on a portable gaming console
• You can make phonecalls without risking your life
• You can talk with other people
  
• You can take a nap on your way home after a hard day at the office. Try that in your car..

So, why not use your time more productive? You'd be reading the newspaper anyway, why not combine it with your commute?

Benefits of public transport - Less stress

Photo by saveena

This post is part of a series of posts about the benefits of public transport.

At first sight using any kind of public transport doesn't look very stress-free. You have to take care of the schedule and you have to make sure you don't miss your bus. On the other hand, your car is waiting for you and ready whenever you want to go.

I used to think the same. But then I tried to take the bus and after some years of using public transport I no longer think of my car as a stress-free way to get to the office. Let's take a closer look at how you use your car...

• You go to the garage, sit in your car and drive away, right? What about all the things you need to do for this? Your car doesn't go to the gas station by itself. You have to take care of this. Everything we need to take care of adds a certain level of stress to our lives.
• You then drive to your office. If your drive is a pleasant one, you're quite a lucky guy. For the rest of us, there are traffic jams, annoying red lights and most annoying: other drivers. If those other drivers would take the bus, driving to work would be so much nicer. If they weren't driving like crazy idiots, the way to work wouldn't take that much time. I wonder if they think the same about me.
• You finally reach your destination. You can now start your turns around the block to find a free parking lot. Have you ever thought about how much time you spend parking your car in a year?

On the other hand you could take the bus...

• Your day starts a little bit stressful on the first days. After a few days you no longer think about the bus schedule, you simply know when you have to go to reach the bus without any stress.
• That's it. Now you've time for yourself. The bus driver takes care of all the other crazy idiots on the street and you don't have to find a parking lot.
  

Of course this only works if your home and your office are near public transport. But if you live in a city, chances for this aren't that bad. Maybe you should take a closer look at your local public transport system and start with a stressless commute tomorrow? If you do, try for a longer time. The first days when everything is new to you might not be as stress-free as you want, but this will get better every day...

The benefits of public transport

I'll try to post a series of articles about the benefits of public transport, starting today. Everybody knows that using public transport is a good way to help the environment. But the most important thing for most people is: "How could this be good for me?"

I'll point out some of the benefits I get of using public transport. I started to take the bus some years ago. It took me nearly double the time it takes by car, and yet I'm still taking the bus. It can't be that bad after all. I still have a car, and I don't go everywhere with public transport. It's not that it's strictly necessary, it's just convenient. But I try to take the bus as often as possible.

I hope that I can show you that public transport can be good for you...

Just a few steps to a more healthy life...

Living more healthy doesn't mean you have to completely change your life overnight and leave all of your unhealthy habits behind you. In fact, in the long run it works much better to change things one by one. You could change everything at once, but after some time your bad habits will come back. You feel bad when you realize it, but this doesn't give lots of motivation to change your life again.

By changing small things you can form new habits, and get used to a healthy lifestyle. You get to know the benefits of every single step you take. When you know about the benefits, you won't stop that easy because you know what you'll lose. If you change lots of things at the same time, you don't know what you loose if you took away one thing. You just know what you lose when you give up everything. You won't miss one thing that much...

So today, we start with one small step towards a healthy lifestyle. In fact, it's more than one step: Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

It's much more comfortable to take the elevator, I know. The first days might be hard, but after a short time you'll recognize it's getting easier every day. After some weeks you'll ask yourself why you took the elevator in the first place. No matter where you want to go, it always seems to wait for you on the wrong floor. If you take a look at your watch, you'll recognize that most of the time you're faster when you take the stairs. You don't have to wait for them. They're already there. Not only is it more healthy - it's also faster.

You really should give this a try, unless you live or work on the 42nd floor. That would definitely be a healthy thing, but I doubt you'll be faster than the elevator ;)

Always carry a pen with you

Our brain is a strange thing. It reminds us that we should buy fruits while we are waiting for the bus, but it can't tell us if there's any milk left in the fridge while we are shopping. You have the best ideas at the strangest places, and when you are home again you can't remember any of it. You know you had a good idea, but no matter how hard you try - you can't remember.

There's a simple way out of this dilemma. Capture any idea as soon as it hits you. But how to capture ideas in any situation?

I've tried all kinds of tools to solve this problem. I tried PDAs and smartphones. But in the end, the best tool of all is good old paper and a pen. Even better is the advanced version of pen and paper: The Hipster PDA. Most of you will already know it, but for those who don't: It's basically a pile of index cards used as an organizer. It's a simple but brilliant idea.

Even those modern web applications for making lists, drawings or other documents online can't beat paper. It has lots of advantages over the other so-called advanced tools:

It's instant
No need to boot it up and launch the right application. Just grab it and start writing.

It's flexible
You can do everything you want. Need to write text? Write. Need some drawing? Draw. Need to make a table? Make a table.
You don't have to search for the right application to make a drawing. You could make it everywhere, right there between the text and the table.

It's cheap
Paper and a pen don't cost you hundreds of dollars. Well, you could pay hundreds of dollars for the pen alone - but you don't need to spend that much. For the price of a PDA you can write a lot of ideas on a lot of paper...

It's durable
Drop it on the floor, bend it, throw it threw the room to let off steam. Try that with your smartphone...

It doesn't run out of batteries
Image you want to write down the greatest idea you ever had, and you forgot to recharge your PDA...

The only thing that doesn't work that well for me on paper is my calendar. I don't want to change my calendar everytime a meeting gets rescheduled. I want it to sync with my smartphone automatically. But for everything else nothing can beat my Hipster PDA. If you haven't already, you should give this a try...

A walk a day

I've stopped counting how many times I tried to start running regularly. Everytime I realize I should do more for my health I start again. But it just takes a few weeks until I don't run as often as I want to, and after another week I've stopped completely. Again.

It's not that I don't like to run. I really enjoy it. During my runs, it seems like the rest of the world is standing still. There are no problems, no deadlines - just me and my iPod. Afterwards, I feel like I've got more energy than before.

So, why in the world would I stop running, if it makes me feel so good? Deep inside of me, I'm quite a lazy guy. For a while, the lazy guy in me is so amazed about my motivation in running that he has no idea what he could do about it. But after a few weeks he's coming back with all kinds of excuses...

• The weather is too bad...
  
• I don't feel very well, running is probably not that good...
• I had to work longer, I should get some rest before going to bed...
• I've been running for a while now, a day more or less won't make a difference...
• I'm so hungry, I should eat something...
• I shouldn't go running so shortly after eating something...

These seem to be the same excuses everytime, but unfortunately they work. Everytime.

Some time ago I started an experiment that seems to work very well. My goal is no longer to go running at least 3 times a week. My goal is now to make a walk for at least 30 minutes every day. It doesn't matter where I am. I could go for a walk in my neighborhood, the city, a forest, everywhere else in the world. All of the above excuses won't work against a short walk. There's no reason why I shouldn't go for a walk after eating something. 30 minutes aren't that much, but 30 minutes of walking every day are surely more healthy than some days of running followed by 3 months of couch-potato life.

I only allow myself one exception to my "A walk a day challenge": If I feel like running, I replace my walk with that. It's amazing how often I feel like running if there are no "I really should go running" thoughts in my head.

If you have similar problems with running regularly, you should give the "A walk a day challenge" a try...