Let’s face it. Commuters probably spend more time in the car than the man cave. A 45-minute one-way commute adds up to seven and a half hours per week, and a staggering thirty hours every month! It’s too depressing to even look at the annual stats. It really feels like a lot of time lost.

Part of dealing with the life of commuting is distracting yourself with entertainment. I eventually burned out on talk radio and music didn’t distract me enough from traffic and road construction. I started listening to podcasts, which are great, but I sometimes forgot to load them onto my iPod.

I saw an ad for a free trial of audible and gave it a shot. Audible is a monthly subscription service that provides one ($14.95) or two audio books ($22.95) per month. It is kind of like Netflix for audio books. Audio books are downloaded to a PC, then transferred to an iPod or mp3 player to take with you. Purchases are added to your library and are available for multiple downloads. The service works very well with iTunes.

Audible has a huge library of more than 60,000 audio books to choose from. Categories range from business, classics, fiction, history, mysteries and thrillers, nonfiction, sci-fi & fantasy, self-development and more. One word of caution, not all of the readers will suite your taste. I strongly recommend listening to the sample provided for each book. Nothing worse than being stuck in traffic with an annoying person reading to you.

I recommend calculating the amount of time spent in the car, then purchase selections that will last through the month. Once you accumulate a library you will have favorites that you will listen to again, and you can ease off on the calculations. I recommend unabridged audio books for you long haul commuters.

Audible has surprisingly good customer service. I was listening to a really long Russian novel and forgot to use my monthly credit, and that credit expired. A quick email to customer service and they added the credit back to my account. They have also answered my questions within a day.

A commuter’s car can be a mobile man cave, with all the gear needed to live the lifestyle on the road. We have a killer sounds system, satellite radio GPS navigation, heated commuter mugs and mobile toiletries to arrive fresh at the office after having breakfast on the road. Audible is another weapon against road rage and commuting boredom.

Once I started using audible I was hooked. I have been able to check off quite a few books from my reading list and make professional progress with business books. I really feel that my commute time is not lost anymore. I won’t say I have come so far as to enjoy my commute, but I do enjoy the audio books I listen to and I arrive home in a much better mood.

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Tags: audible, audio book, commute, man cave