Stock direction, time decay and implied volatility are the three core components that make an option price change. Only one of the three can be truly counted on, and that's decay. But the amount of time for sale and the speed of the decay process can be dramatically affected by changes in volatility. With this in mind, trading with time decay on your side can be much less of a Maalox moment if one has an indication of existing market volatility levels.
Sometimes I like to sell volatility when it's probably excessive and buy when it's likely in a quiet period. This takes a contrarian's mindset. I would expect what is happening now to change. I zig when others zag, shake when others bake, buy when everyone else is selling or even pick the Cardinals to go to the Superbowl. But knowing when volatility is high or low is a challenge. The VIX is a great indicator for analyzing this, but we can use some other volatility indicators like Bollinger bands to shed some light on the subject.
The Bollinger bands expand when price volatility increases and contract when volatility decreases. The contrarian thought is to add positions that sell volatility, like Iron Condors, when the bands are relatively wide while using positions that buy volatility, like calendars, when the bands are narrow.

One could add a confirmation filter to improve the value of the concept as well. For example, if the bands are wide open and price goes outside of a band, this would indicate extreme levels of volatility that carry odds of contraction, while a price touch of a band in narrow circumstances improves the likelihood of a volatility expansion period.
I don't use these bands to replace my usage of the VIX and wouldn't expect anyone else to do that either. But if you'd like to explore market price volatility along with implied volatility, the bands might help you hold things together.

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