[phatboyslim]

You could increase your personal value by listening to audiobooks or podcasts to improve your education. There are actually several audio programs from sites like The Great Courses which you can tune to your specific interests.

It's not a direct path to a financial gain, but it does improve your personal value, which should in turn improve your income streams.

[dbg31415]

This is what I do. It's not so much "making money" but just making sure I am utilizing my time correctly. If I'm just sitting in the car waiting to get to work... that's a waste. If I'm listening to a book or podcast, that means I have that time back at the end of the day for more sleep, or whatever.

I used to, in my late 20s, car pool with people to work. We'd flip on a podcast -- every day it was someone's job to pick one out. Then talk about it a bit... made the time go by quickly and we all ended up learning something. Harder to do as careers became more serious... stopped being viable to schedule my arrival and departure times around others.

If you have friends in the same time-zone you can schedule a commute call to catch up and bitch about things. Some of my buddies and I used to have a conference line open at a set hour, anyone who wanted to dial in on their drive in could. Was nice, until everyone started having kids and it was viable to talk openly in the car.

Lastly... just sort of thinking about your goals and things you want to accomplish that day... I tend to do this quite a bit. Got in the habit of using my first 30 minutes at work for day planning / preparation... but always helps to have it all queued up in my head before I write it down in my journal.