Reduce Your Commute
Commute – the regular journey to and from one’s place of work.
Many associate it with dead time… And it is in a way. For sure it’s an uncompensated amount of our time that is used for the job.
Anyway, this post is not only about reducing, but also minimizing the amount of life wasted daily. All the hours you’re giving away for free, all the dead time you use to get to the office, work, and do it again, all the stress accumulating just to explode in a form of a burnout, etc.
Nobody likes commute.
Nobody enjoys rush hours.
And on top of it all – nobody is asking you how you feel, right? There’s construction on the road? Find a way to get to the office! The weather conditions are brutal? You need to clock in! The metro is delayed for 30 minutes? Wait for it on your own time!
But we still do it. There’s a lot at stake – our lives. So let’s see how we can tackle this temporary but necessary evil and end up on top eventually.
Traditional approaches to reducing commute
Before I dive into a more strategic approach of reducing commute, let’s get a few things out of the way that can partially or completely reduce your commuting time.
Reduce commute by finding remote work
This is an obvious one. But there are two issues regarding it: job stability and opportunity cost.
I used to consider working from home as some type of freedom until I did it – I realized that I’m just picking up temporary unstable job opportunities with variable rates. And I’m not generalizing – not everyone has the same experience or mindset. Some people would enjoy the grind, the building of a brand, and eventually may take it off to something bigger.
For me though, I wanted to invest in my career, as it seemed like the right choice (confirmed). Establishing a business is something that I’d do after I’m financially stable, because it’s the embodiment of “putting all eggs in one basket”, which is wrong to most things when it comes to $$$.
I also understand that not everyone is in a position to get a remote job. There are several potential impediments: lack of qualifications & skills, lack of network, lack of experience, etc. However, even with those conquered, there are still issues to take into consideration:
- How scalable is this model? Will you be able to earn more than in traditional job in 5 years and is there a “peace of mind” trade-off?
- How does health insurance work in your country?
- Will you acquire pension?
- How flexible are the mortgages in your country?
- What are the terms of the contract? What happens if you’re made redundant? Are you able to jump ship within a month or two?
What I’m trying to say is: don’t jump on the first opportunity that shows a bigger number today. Evaluate its mid-term potential because, unless really lucky, you’re not becoming a millionaire in a year or two. And if you’re working for a decade anyway, analyze your earning potential on a larger scale, not just what makes more sense at this particular moment.
Reduce commute by getting a job closer to where you live
Self explanatory and with less downside potential than the previous example.
The only problems are if you’re living in a less developed area or in a town with less opportunities than the one you work in and thus traveling daily.
Note: for most people I know the common commute time is 40-60 minutes. And it makes sense, as in bigger cities the industrial areas are outside residential neighborhoods. This time can go up and down with the size of the city, the car culture in the country, the reliability of public transport, and other factors.
However, if you’re fed up with the commute and have options around, just start applying. There is nothing to lose and reducing your commute will anyway require a job change… Unless we switch the priorities:
Reduce commute by renting an apartment closer to where you work
Not much to say here. Just move.
Note that I’m saying “rent” and not a general “get”. Making 6 figure decisions based on a location of a job wouldn’t be that smart.
If it’s more expensive or worse, that’s the premium you’re paying to live closer to work.
You want more money or less commuting time? Put some numbers on your priorities and reevaluate. If you can’t make up your mind, postpone it for three months.
Of course, don’t forget to save and invest as much money as possible in the process… While talking about it:
Pursue FIRE
And when everything else fails or is not an option… Start pursuing FIRE.
And then stop worrying about commute and enjoy never doing it again after 10 years.
Something to keep in mind: whether you travel 30 or 90 minutes, you dedicate your life to your employer. It’s that simple! Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that having a 30 minutes extra will make some big of a difference. I’d always choose more money to less commute.
Well, with all that said, let’s see how I actually approach reducing commute – the amount of time potentially lost.
How I approach reducing commute
Since I can remember, I always had some kind of a TODO list. But every time it naturally switched to a LIFO (last in, first out) method of going through it. That means that the oldest items I planned for usually remained buried underneath the increasing inflow of things I wanted to do. And with so many things to learn, do, or create, the ratio between adding and completing TODO items was always > 1.
I also tried other methods of keeping myself on top of my TODOs such as ordering the items by time or effort required to complete. It was maybe a little bit more effective, but of course, with not enough throughput, the larger (more difficult or time consuming) items piled on the bottom forever.
The most effective way I found was creating a weekly TODO on a certain day each week and not focusing on anything else until the next week’s planning session. What an agile methodology, right?
Now, those larger or older items that remained untouched were usually things like developing a certain skill from scratch, learning about a field I have zero knowledge about, reading books that I can’t prioritize, building something that requires more time, etc.
And I think that this is a case with many smart people who simply can’t physically achieve everything they want. Their (our) curiosity and ambitions are so high that they (we) can’t keep up with the amount of things they (we) want to dive into.
However, managing TODO lists is not the point of this post… But I can tell that you’re starting to have an idea about where this is going.
Reduce commute
Okay, how we’ll approach this problem is by minimizing the opportunity cost we accumulate daily while idly existing in the fast paced world that’s passing us by.
Think about it this way:
Are there books you always wanted to read but never had a chance?
Is there a product you wanted to develop but never got to it?
Is there some knowledge you wanted to acquire but never found time to do it?
Here is your chance!
I think that many people underestimate how big of a percentage of their time they can utilize productively. And I know that in general people relate more with specifics instead of abstractions, so here are a few:
Not satisfied with your salary? Research the job market!
Worried that you’re just stashing a pile of cash? Learn to invest!
Afraid of your skill set becoming redundant? Freshen it up!
And I can go on and on! But it all depends on what are you interested in: you can study human psychology, NLP, suggestion, biases, influence techniques, probability & statistics, research a non-traditional market to invest in, improve your memory by mastering mnemonics systems, study certain philosopher’s work, learn to solve Rubik’s cube blindfolded, learn about nutrition & optimize your diet, research how to approach strength training, learn to code, create a website, read the books you planned to read anyway, etc., etc., etc. And I’m not saying to do any of those for the hell of it. I’m just throwing random examples, part of which I also don’t have any interest in, to give an idea about the scope of things doable while in public transport.
There is no shortage of things I can think about… Even if you just sit there idly, think about it this way: wanted to try mindfulness / meditation but nearly died of boredom each time you tried? There’s your golden opportunity!
And since you’re a professional, there is no reason not to get at least one valuable certification this year. Especially because you have a couple of hours daily to utilize anyway. I don’t know which fields most of my readers are in, but let’s take the software engineers as an example. There are universally recognized certifications that can boost your careers now and in the future. And you don’t need to look further than Amazon and Microsoft. But you can – there is RHCSA, LPI for system administrators, CEH, CISM for those in IT security, PMP, CSM for (project) managers, CFA, FRM for those in finance, GMP, SFMC for those in marketing, Oracle DBA, OCE for database administrators, BCNSP, BCPP for pharmacists, ECP, WCPC for psychotherapy, etc. Find the ones that make sense for you, both now and in the long run.
My point? You can literally improve your career (i.e. earn more) just by sitting there.
And the best part? This way you’re not only getting the potentially lost time of the commute back, but you also have more time to do other things at home! The execution time of the things you’ll take care of during commute is a bonus time you’ll get to spend at home. It’s 2x the rewards!
In comparison, the alternative is self-hatred: blending in with a crowd of idiots playing stupid games on their phones.
So trust me. I tried it this way and there are days when I simply want it to take longer. And not only I’ve improved my knowledge (and life) in various areas, but some of these posts that you’re reading also originate from a commuting Monk.
Conclusion
Use your time wisely. Research, produce, study. Don’t let dead time take over your life.
Stay alive!
And if you live in a country that has a car culture and can’t do what I preach, either make sure to earn as high as possible in the name of FIRE or, as I did, relocate to a more appropriate place. But if the public transport is reliable, at least consider not using your car.
No Comments