Make Driving Productive Time

As a parent, you'll be driving your child all over the place. Whether you’re just taking your kid to school or driving them between extracurricular activities, you’re likely to find yourself in the car a bit more than you were before. Whatever the reason is, driving can often feel like lost time. However, you can make your time in the car extremely productive (relatively) with a few different ideas from below.

The number one way to make driving productive for yourself is to listen to something productive. Rather than listening to music or sports radio, turn on an audiobook. You could also turn on language learning courses, or something else that will help you to learn. There’s no real limit to what you can choose to listen to in the car, but putting on something that will help you to further your goals is generally the best choice.

Too much of talk radio is pointless - rattling on about whatever random news is going on with celebrities or weird things that happened locally. Whenever I turn the radio on, I realize quickly why we don’t listen to it much. Music is fun, but it’s all of the ads and other talk that is really pointless and not really helping you gain any meaningful knowledge. Use the time to listen to an audiobook or otherwise.

We should mention that you should keep your phone put away while driving. Do not pull it out to answer texts or emails or anything of the sort. While it can be tempting to do so, it’s also one of the most dangerous things you can do (not to mention illegal). Keep your phone in your pocket or purse. If you need to answer or check something on your phone, then pull over before doing so.

Beyond listening to something that will be useful to you, you should engage your kids in meaningful conversation. There’s no reason that they need to sit and look at their phones or a tablet while in the car. Ask them questions about what they have been doing, encourage them to tell you about their feelings, and work on learning with them while driving. Driving in the car with kids is one of the times that you’ll have their full attention.

You can also work on repeating something that you’ve been trying to memorize. Whether it’s a speech or simply new words for a language your learning, or a presentation that you’ll be giving. Review those items in your head as you drive to help pass the time. Once again, keep your focus on the road, but it’s a great time to occupy your thoughts with things that will help you to learn or progress.

For younger children, work on colors, numbers, shapes, and other basic learning activities. Ask them what color they see outside, and then try to guess what it is they’re looking at. Have them describe what they’re seeing as well. This is a great opportunity to help them to expand their vocabulary at a time when you’re already in the car with them. Help them to learn how stoplights work and use the colors to help teach them.

If your kids aren’t interested in discussion, bring along activity books that the kids can do while in the car. If they have homework, then they can work on that, or they could work on some other activity that you have. Grade level activity books are a great way to help them pass the time and to keep things a bit quieter for you as you’re focused on the road. 

Driving doesn’t have to be a complete waste of time. If you’re doing a lot of driving, look for ways to make your time as productive as possible while being safe.