Goodbye morning gridlock, hello to reinventing your workday

The daily commute as we knew it may be gone for good — and with it, the assumptions about how, where, and when we work. This exploration of the post-commute world examines the money saved, the time reclaimed, and the ventures reinventing the workday around flexibility.

Are you missing your commute? Sitting in hours of traffic only to go 20 miles? Standing in inclement weather for your bus? Being packed in the subway like sardines? For the foreseeable future our commute as we know it is a thing of the past. Just think of all of the time that we’ve gained back, the money we’ve saved on gas and work attire. In fact, in the US alone, “eliminating the daily commute has saved workers around 89 million hours each week — equivalent to time savings of more than 44.5 million full workdays since the pandemic began!” (Anne Williams HBR August 2020). This revelation originally had me jumping for joy, however, I didn’t feel like I gained an hour. With the stress of our commute eliminated, are you happier and more productive in your workday? Do you feel emotionally charged with this extra time? I certainly don’t! Pre-COVID, I had a hybrid work schedule, consisting of a mix of WFH and office time. However, this all went out the window when everyone in my family began working and schooling from home. I never thought I’d say this, but I missed the downtime of driving home from the office, calling my loved ones, or listening to my favorite podcast….alone. My brain needed this ritual in order to prepare for my duties at home and decompress after the workday. Without that, my days were on repeat, similar to Groundhog Day. I asked myself, how long can I go on like this? I realized, not only did I need to redefine my commute, but I need to redefine my workday. My solution was to recreate my “new” workday, starting with an unconventional “commute” to my kitchen island. I redefined my workday, so I could manage my time more efficiently. The silver lining was the ability to create a schedule that worked for me, instead of against me. No matter what time I started my workday I found making small adjustments, helped me with my mindset and my overall productivity. Hit the reset button I had to say goodbye to checking all of my email inboxes and news before my

By Paula Quinn at TechNexus Venture Collaborative