Riding the Bus Every Day
Last year, I started riding the bus fairly religiously between Boulder and Denver.
It was an experiment that resulted in me selling my Land Rover in December. It only made sense, as I ended up driving it only a handful of times. More often than not, I would receive “abandoned vehicle” notices by the City of Boulder if I left my car parked somewhere on Mapleton Hill too long.
So, now the Lorangs of Boulder are a one car household. Thank goodness for RTD and Uber!
And I have found that I don’t miss driving to work one bit.
In the mornings, I usually catch the 6:40AM BX bus from 14th and Walnut station in Boulder. It’s a 10 minute walk from my house, so I am usually out the door by 6:30AM
This bus has a bunch of commuters in it, and I usually sit in the 3rd row from the back on the Driver’s side. I guess I like routine.
This bus arrives at 7:25AM at Union Station. I am in the FullContact office 5 minutes later.
If it’s a good day, I can grab a hot breakfast burrito at the Boulder bus station. But sometimes Santiago’s has not delivered yet 🙁
At nights, if I don’t have a meeting back in Boulder, I usually catch a bus just after 6PM. I get home around 7PM or so.
I have come to enjoy the 90 minutes of solitude I have every day.
I usually meditate using the Calm app in the mornings.
I then listen to music and go through a routine of checking email and responding.
I check Slack and then provide a quick daily update to my leadership team.
I check our daily automated report full of metrics and customer feedback to see how the business did yesterday.
I test out new features in our mobile apps and provide feedback to our apps teams.
I will read interesting things I see on Twitter.
I will take a look at my calendar for the day and mentally check off the things I want accomplish in each meeting.
A lot of the time, I will sit and think about important strategic topics.
At night, my routine is somewhat different.
It is often more social media centric than the mornings.
I might listen to a Podcast or just music.
I might read Grantland.
I might write a blog post (like I am right now)
But it’s more about winding down so I have some hope of being totally present with my family.
There is a saying that every CEO needs a “secret office” to go and get things done.
One of my “secret offices” is the back of the RTD bus.
Give public transit a try for a month. You will be surprised at how much productive time you reclaim in your day.