As you may know, I live in Ottawa. As you may or may not know, however, we’re currently over 40 days into a transit strike, leaving a city of about one million people with nary a bus in sight.

Now, regardless of my personal attitudes towards this strike, there are real and tangible impacts on every Ottawan. Whether you took transit in the past or drove, whether you’re a salaried executive or part-time hourly employee, a student or a retiree, young, old or anything in between, the lack of transit service has impacted everyone.

When the strike first hit, universities and colleges were starting exams and students were spending two to three hours trying to get there. The quick twenty to thirty minute trip into work has turned into hour and a half battles against other exhausted commuters. Even with carpooling, opening extra lanes, and allowing more flexible hours at workplaces throughout the city, traffic is a nightmare for everyone.

The challenge is that traffic doesn’t just impact the time you spend at work, but all your other time as well. Time previously spent doing your errands or things around the house, is now spent in the car.

So when one of the key parts of your day is changed on you and tilted against balance, what can you do to try to keep some time for yourself?

Food

We all need it, and it’s nice when it can be healthy too. But when you’re rushing between work and everything else, and getting there takes three times as long, well, you don’t always feel like cooking when you get home.

How can you get around this?

• Cook extra so you can have leftovers - if you double a recipe and eat it for two days, you’ve just cut the amount of time you spend cooking in half. (Well, almost, there’s a little more prep work)

• Invest in a slow cooker with a programmable timer - I’ve got one, and walking in the door from a long, frustrating commute, to a wonderful-smelling, tasty dinner ready and waiting for me is definitely a good thing.
• Combine the two - and make big slow-cooker meals with leftovers and get the best of both worlds.

Chores

Getting things done around the house can be a challenge. If you’re suddenly spending an extra 10-15 hours a week commuting, finding time for laundry, cleaning and home maintenance can be even harder.

How do we get around that? I’ve written about two ways to get housework done in the past, and they still both apply, if in different ways. With additional time being spent out of the house, we can still batch process our work, or do it incrementally, but we’re going to need to find alternate times to do it. Weekends will be the ideal times for anything batchable, and maybe you find five to ten minutes each morning to pay a bill or two. Or maybe try a blend, gather all your laundry, but focus on one load a day. Is it the most efficient? No, but it is better than trying to cut into your already vital sleep to fold that last load of shirts.

The commute

During a bus strike, the most direct effect is obviously the commute. There’s no buses, so whether your a transit user or not, your travel to work will be affected, whether that’s in time of day, duration, mode of transport or who you’re going with.

If you’re already trying to use your commute to help your balance, what are you supposed to do? Obviously, if you’re now driving instead of taking the bus, you probably won’t be able to catch up on your sleep. However, if you’re carpooling and the people you’re with don’t mind, why not?

Likewise, many similar things can happen. Maybe you use your commute for reading or listening to music. If you’re now sharing your commute with others, perhaps you can be listening to the same music or audiobooks and making it a group event. In car audiobook club anyone?

If you’re someone who uses their commute for downtime or alone time, then even if you’re now sharing rides, maybe you talk to your co-commuters and see if they’d mind if you continued to do the same. If they do, then like the things above, you either make the choice to sacrifice that or if that’s not an option, you find another ride.

Conclusions?

When your ability to get around the city or town you live in, a key facet of your day-to-day life, is drastically affected, maintaining the balance you’ve worked so hard to achieve can be even more challenging. Through making a few changes, some large, some small, you can find ways to help make this a little easier.

If you’ve got other tips to help people through situations like this, I’d love to hear them! Please drop them in the comments below.