It's happened more than once before: you're stuck in traffic on the way to work and you can't help but glance at the clock every ten seconds or so because you know the boss is a real stickler for tardiness. On the other hand, there's nothing you can do about the traffic - your GPS doesn't have life traffic updates and you're not sure where you can go from here.
Okay, maybe in that situation, there isn't much you can do, but you can indeed take a few steps in order to make sure the above doesn't happen again. It's all about finding and defining alternative routes to get you to where you need to be. There wasn't always be a shortcut between your home and your office, but there will be opportunities to fly by traffic simply because you've taken the time to read this article. For that you are clearly an intelligent person.
Once you already have GPS devices from brands like TomTom, you should notice that when you are about to start driving, you have the option to enter in your desired destination. When you go along the roads for this destination, you can easily follow the instructions and end up at what is so often referred to as "Point B." But what happens if you've strayed off the beaten path? There's a good chance that you've already tried it just to test it out, but we'll remind you anyway: your GPS will usually just "recalculate" its journey to your destination. In other words, it will adapt itself to the way you're driving.
This can be great if you have a view of the highway up ahead and see that traffic looks unbearable, or if you hear a report on the radio that there's been an accident on the same route you usually take to work. You can simply drive to an alternate area and wait for your GPS to re-adjust itself to you.
This isn't a fool-proof method, of course. Once you take a custom-made detour, your GPS will sometimes try to steer you right back to where you came from. If your GPS doesn't know about any traffic jam, there's a good chance that it will simply try and get you back on the original route. If you're a clever navigator, you have to keep ignoring the GPS' directions until you know that it's going to steer you past the trouble area.
It might not make a whole lot of sense to start experimenting with this method of navigation on the way to work, so try and take your GPS out for a ride on the weekend and see what happens when you start throwing it some curveballs. If you can get past an imaginary "traffic jam" (which you are pretending exists along the main route for the sake of the test) then you shouldn't have a problem doing the same thing when it comes to the morning or evening commute.
You can also purchase additional features from your GPS, including live traffic updates, in order to make sure that you never run into troubles of this kind. Keep in mind that many of the tips above were for GPS devices that do not have these installed features. You might want to experiment a little with a live traffic GPS device in order to discover some nice "alternative route" strategies.
Once you find a few alternate routes in familiar areas, you won't even need the GPS anymore: you'll simply take your detour whenever you hear on the radio or see on your GPS that there is a traffic problem up ahead. If you're in a new area, however, sometimes it doesn't hurt to stay stuck in traffic for a while, as it can often beat exploring and getting lost.