Surface Ripples

Commuting: A Blessing or Curse?

An article on the BBC website claims, “The daily commute provides “bookends” to the workday.”  The author describes a worker who had to use three modes of transport to get to/from their office in the USA.  Reminded me of when I commuted in the UK (and I als o used three modes of transport).

The author claims that one of the advantages of the “bookending” that commuting provides is the separation between work and home.  I always remember getting off the train at my platform at the end of the day after a 45-minute journey (which turned into 1¼ hours when we moved) out of London, breathing in fresher country air and knowing I was “away from it all”.

The problem, claims one expert, is that home and work life are no longer separate.  A commute offers the chance to disengage (or, re-engage if the other way around).  I have to confess, with the advent of mobile communications (starting with the “Blackberry” in my case), being able to get through emails on the way up, or to read the morning papers and arrive at one’s desk “ready to go”, was great.  

The commute home (luckily involving a long train journey) could be used for reading reports, writing offline on my laptop, or (bliss!) reading a novel.  My fellow commuters used to listen to music on their personal devices, sleep, chat with other friends on the journey back.  One could use the time to think things through, “zone out” or otherwise reflect on what had happened during the day and how one might improve the situation.

Fast-forward to the days of social distancing and one is now “living at work” or “working at home”.  If one has children, this situation becomes more complex…. 

In my professional life, I’ve had commutes up to 1 ½ hours door-to-door, or as short as 15 minutes.  In some countries, people clearly like to live closer to work; in others, they don’t have the choice.  As technology advanced, we could do more “on the go”, allowing better use of time at work.  

Would I prefer to work at an office?  There are plenty of advantages, not least feeding off each other’s ideas and being able to meet clients on “central ground”.   At home, one has fewer distractions (assuming the kids aren’t excited that “Daddy’s home”) and can work on projects requiring concentration.  Some businesses have arrangements that allow employees to work from home on certain days provided that it isn’t a Monday or Friday and that they actually have something to accomplish.  I have memories of my days in Hong Kong and going into the office on long public holidays for a morning and accomplishing more in half a day than in two full ones or work, simply through having no distractions.  I could also get in relatively quickly.

In short, the commute is a blessing or curse, depending on how you travel, how long for and where to/from.  On a summer evening, watching the Hampshire countryside unroll past my train window on the way home, it was bliss.  On a cold, dark winter night when I could see nothing, I might as well have been on the London Underground.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website  provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.

Labels: Career, Productivity

posted by William Martin @ 15:40