How Long Is Your Commute?

Off Topic
21

[quote]Anonymity wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
In December my commute was 30 miles each way so about an hour to an hour and half depending on traffic. Sometimes 2 hours each way.

Now my commute is about 10 minutes total…I’d take a 30% pay cut to keep the 7 minute commute, no joke. It’s unbelievable how much better I feel on a day to day basis just from this one change. [/quote]

I seriously understand that.

To those who do happen to be stuck with 20 to 30 minute commutes, though, I HIGHLY recommend taking that time and using it to further your education. Listen to self-improvement or educational audio on your way to and from work, every day, every time you go to work. Think about it: 20 minutes, twice a day, adds up to 160 extra hours of education a year! That’s really insane if you think about it. You take the time that most people just waste listening to music or talk radio, and you learn a new language, advance your knowledge in your field, learn how to sell, market or promote your service, product, or self, or just get smarter.

I started doing this years ago and I cannot, I REALLY cannot recommend this highly enough. Anyone who is not doing this is making an egregious misappropriation of the precious little time we have on this earth to improve his life. Plus, once you get started it’s really fun. [/quote]

That’s a really good point.

Sometimes I wish I could commute via train or bus so I could get some reading done.

I imagine there’s probably some pretty good educational podcasts and things out there as well as books on tape.
[/quote]

Some of the best stuff in the world is on audio. The really good stuff is pretty expensive, but, if used correctly, worth WAY more than you will ever pay for it.

www.nightingale.com is the source of the absolute creme de la creme of self-improvement audio, but it really just scratches the surface of what is out there.

22

[quote]SkyNett wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
In my early twenties I lived on Long Island (East Meadow) commueted to the Flushing area of Brooklyn. [/quote]

I grew up in East Meadow. Did not know you lived there. [/quote]

Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn or Flushing Queens?

23

I travel 42 miles each way to work…because I work off hours it takes 1 to 1.5 hours each way, if I went during normal hours it would take at least 5 hours total a day. If it takes an hour I accept it, anything over I get pretty pissed. I travel from Staten Island to the South Bronx for any NYers

24

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
About 10 minutes to work. I don’t understand how people commute an hour each way, daily…[/quote]

Are you really from Idaho? If thats the case I would venture to guess thats why you wouldnt understand. A 20 mile distance taking public transportation can take over an hour in NYC. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I have no choice.

25

[quote]MattyXL wrote:

[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
About 10 minutes to work. I don’t understand how people commute an hour each way, daily…[/quote]

Are you really from Idaho? If thats the case I would venture to guess thats why you wouldnt understand. A 20 mile distance taking public transportation can take over an hour in NYC. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I have no choice.[/quote]

I only moved here recently. I’m from a much more populated area.

I do understand that some people don’t have a choice. Most commercial districts can be quite far from any residential, at least in terms of time (traffic).

26

17 minutes by Bicycle…if the winds in my favour. 20 if not. I consider it my ancilliary aerobic training.

I recall someone in Oz published something that said the average commute was 45 minutes. So thats 90 minutes a day sitting on your lardy arse…whose got time for training after that!

27

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
In December my commute was 30 miles each way so about an hour to an hour and half depending on traffic. Sometimes 2 hours each way.

Now my commute is about 10 minutes total…I’d take a 30% pay cut to keep the 7 minute commute, no joke. It’s unbelievable how much better I feel on a day to day basis just from this one change. [/quote]

I seriously understand that.

To those who do happen to be stuck with 20 to 30 minute commutes, though, I HIGHLY recommend taking that time and using it to further your education. Listen to self-improvement or educational audio on your way to and from work, every day, every time you go to work. Think about it: 20 minutes, twice a day, adds up to 160 extra hours of education a year! That’s really insane if you think about it. You take the time that most people just waste listening to music or talk radio, and you learn a new language, advance your knowledge in your field, learn how to sell, market or promote your service, product, or self, or just get smarter.

I started doing this years ago and I cannot, I REALLY cannot recommend this highly enough. Anyone who is not doing this is making an egregious misappropriation of the precious little time we have on this earth to improve his life. Plus, once you get started it’s really fun. [/quote]

Are you a Zig Ziglar fan? He was big on that.

28

An hour each way.

It affords me a chance to catch up on some of my interests via podcasts - news, baseball, latest music releases etc.

I’ve grown to enjoy my commute time :stuck_out_tongue:

29

Used to be an hour each way. Now I live much closer, so I just run to work in about 10 minutes. It’s amazing how much better your day gets when you no longer have a commute. A work day now has time for other things than work and gym. I highly suggest it for anyone that can live close to work, it will change your life.

30

Until I started commuting I never realized how great a medium podcasts truly are

31

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
In December my commute was 30 miles each way so about an hour to an hour and half depending on traffic. Sometimes 2 hours each way.

Now my commute is about 10 minutes total…I’d take a 30% pay cut to keep the 7 minute commute, no joke. It’s unbelievable how much better I feel on a day to day basis just from this one change. [/quote]

I seriously understand that.

To those who do happen to be stuck with 20 to 30 minute commutes, though, I HIGHLY recommend taking that time and using it to further your education. Listen to self-improvement or educational audio on your way to and from work, every day, every time you go to work. Think about it: 20 minutes, twice a day, adds up to 160 extra hours of education a year! That’s really insane if you think about it. You take the time that most people just waste listening to music or talk radio, and you learn a new language, advance your knowledge in your field, learn how to sell, market or promote your service, product, or self, or just get smarter.

I started doing this years ago and I cannot, I REALLY cannot recommend this highly enough. Anyone who is not doing this is making an egregious misappropriation of the precious little time we have on this earth to improve his life. Plus, once you get started it’s really fun. [/quote]

I second this. And recommend alot of the stuff from the Napolean Hill foundation. Pretty well priced and a ton of content. Just abaout any book you can think of can be bought on audio.

32

Great responses so far.

I haven’t commuted more than 10 minutes in more than a decade. Previous to that I had a 90 minute commute each way and lasted at that job for about 4 months. I commuted an hour each way most of my college/grad-school time.

I’ve work from home the past 4 years, so officially a 7 second commute from bedroom to office if it’s busy getting through the hallway near the bathroom…

I’ve just taken a job in Atlanta where I’ll eventually have to move and I know the commute is AWFUL there. I spend a lot of time there on business anyway. I’m expecting about an hour commute each way 3 days a week (I negotiated 3 days a week in office, two from home).

For those with kids and a relatively long commute >45-60 mins, how do deal with the unknowns like accidents and things?

33

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

For those with kids and a relatively long commute >45-60 mins, how do deal with the unknowns like accidents and things?[/quote]

You take morning duty. So any day you have to work, you do the morning routine.

I drop my kids off in the morning, get them up, etc the days we both work.

Work is cool with this, that way I don’t stress, and if anything happens my wife leaves her job.

When she was preg I left at 3 every day for 6 weeks.

34

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

For those with kids and a relatively long commute >45-60 mins, how do deal with the unknowns like accidents and things?[/quote]

So far my day care is done by a friend of the family who understands that stuff happens. This avoids the $20/fifteen minute penalty that day care centers charge.

For punctuality, I’m usually 10 minutes early for being 15 minutes early. This gives me a big buffer in the event of a traffic problem. Then even if I’m a half hour behind, I’m only 5 minutes late. I also like to get acclimated and informed on what is going on, so the 25 minute early thing is usually to my benefit.

A dry run at the time of day that you make the drive is also a good way to gauge and plan drive time, and synchronizing the clock in the car to the time clock helps.

And finally, more often than not, places in high traffic areas usually have a pretty flexible start time. More often than not if there is a big tie up a couple of supervisors or who ever it is a person reports to are usually in it too.

But I’m a little ocd about this kind of stuff.

35

ha… If I had to punch a clock I would be fired in two seconds. I’m about 2,000x more productive in a flex hours situation.

I like what I hear about ROME (results only management environment) but it wouldn’t work in my office beause they would expect 60 hours worth of results a week, lol.

36

Yeah, the clock thing does kinda suck. A few places I’ve worked didn’t really care when you started or finished (within reason) as long as the work got done.

I’d stack up the hours a little in the beginning of the week then leave at lunch on fridays.

37

12 minutes each way.

38

I am responsible for all the after school pickups whether I leave at 3am or 3pm, which has been the norm lately. My daughter is 10 so I am pretty in tune with the school, if I hit obscene traffic or some other issue she stays in the after school program. If I work my early hours (4am - 12pm generally) even with traffic I have no issues picking her up. When I work my afternoon hours I leave after I drop her off at Dance school which is approx 330, so my off hours help.

39

I have about a 35 minute commute in the morning (leaving at 630am) and 45 minute home.

I started doing this about October and for the first few months I enjoyed it. Not being a morning person the drive woke me up and I got to work refreshed and ready. Same thing happened on the way home. The last two months have been killing me. The commutes are really taking it out of me. Having the opposite effect.

40

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Great responses so far.

I haven’t commuted more than 10 minutes in more than a decade. Previous to that I had a 90 minute commute each way and lasted at that job for about 4 months. I commuted an hour each way most of my college/grad-school time.

I’ve work from home the past 4 years, so officially a 7 second commute from bedroom to office if it’s busy getting through the hallway near the bathroom…

I’ve just taken a job in Atlanta where I’ll eventually have to move and I know the commute is AWFUL there. I spend a lot of time there on business anyway. I’m expecting about an hour commute each way 3 days a week (I negotiated 3 days a week in office, two from home).

For those with kids and a relatively long commute >45-60 mins, how do deal with the unknowns like accidents and things?[/quote]

Until recently I’ve always had a commute of 45-60 minutes one way for the last 15 years.
I now am 11 miles from home and it takes less than 20 min.

Over the years I’ve never had to deal with issues regarding the “unknowns” as my wife was always home to deal with my three daughters.

The single biggest “unknown” that has ever effected my commute was on Dec. 13th. 2007.

Known as the “Debacle” it was a freak snowstorm the left the city of Providence RI in virtual gridlock for hours. As my commute took me from Fall River Ma to the sleepy little town where I live in northwestern Rhode Island (34 miles) i had to pass through Providence and as a result my 45 min ride turned out to be 6 hours and 41 minutes. I’ll never forget it.

Steely…by the way…just want to say that i’ve been in the meat business for 37 years now and two on my favorite places to visit are Sebago Lake and downtown Portland.