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Comment by toxik | Hacker News Reader

I would definitely recommend against having an hour’s commute to work. It is a really strong predictor for life dissatisfaction. Fifteen minutes is the number I heard to be a good balance.

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I currently have an hours commute, which I find works quite well for me. It is a little bit unusual though - it is a train journey with no changes, I always get a seat, and I live about a 2 minute walk from the train station, and work about a 2 minute walk from the train station at the other side. The train journey is about 50 minutes.

It's a good period of time to slowly engage and disengage - I do the things that might affect my productivity in the day - read HN, catch up on personal (and sometimes work) email. I sometimes read a book, or message friends.

Everyone's different but this works nicely for me - when I get in from work I tend not to feel the draw of the screen, so my leisure time is less at risk from being sucked into for example reddit, and when I get to work, the period of the day that in the past I have previously lost a lot of productivity to - a 'few minutes' on catching up with the world, 'relevent' tech news etc I've already scratched that itch.

I think it just sort of works with my fairly ill-disciplined personality traits in a way that helps me be productive.

I think much longer though and I would feel I was losing too much of my day. (I'm typically out of the house 07:00-18:00).

I always look forward to my 50 minutes long commute. It's my podcast/audiobook time that I would never have otherwise.

Mine is pretty similar.

An hour's commute on the train is not at all similar to an hour's car commute.

Let me guess, Cambridge to KingsX to work at Google?

Northallerton to Leeds, work at undisclosed.

Strongly agree, though if you find yourself in that situation there are ways you can turn it into productive time. Especially if you otherwise don't have blocks of alone downtime.

- Use the time to think. Driving the same commute every day becomes automatic and you can solve problems, practice a talk, iterate or come up with ideas and so on. Take notes via voice.

- Podcasts. There's an endless amount of learning available. Some recommendations: 99% Invisible, Making Sense, Hardcore History, Freakonomics, Business Wars, Planet Money.

- Audiobooks.

Make it a habit and you can actually get to the point where your commute is almost painless and even something to look forward to (particularly if it's the only place you listen to podcasts/audiobooks). Sometimes I actually end up waiting in the car extra time for a Podcast to finish or to clean up notes.

Audiobooks have been my savior since I switched to them from podcasts.

I'm making my way through a backlog of must read sci-fi and fantasy classics I never would have read otherwise because I have little time to read a book as it is.

I have to wait a bit and have a somewhat limited selection with my library card, but overall it's worth it.

You should try Scribd.com for audiobooks (disclaimer: I work there)

Thanks for the suggestion. Not really looking to add another subscription to the budget at the moment though.

My coworker has a 1.5-2h commute, which I couldn't wrap my head around until I found that he has two children.

This is his "me time".

> Fifteen minutes is the number I heard to be a good balance

I would rephrase it as: a 15 minutes walk is the sweet spot of commutes.

I typically have about an hour of commute each way adding up to two hours a day.

It kind of works. Lately it has been 1.5 each way which starts eating seriously into other things.

The things that makes it tolerable are typically:

- if I can work while commuting, because that means shorter time in the office. Ironically - and depending on project - I can get more work done on the train than in a similar time slot in the office.

- if I can work on a side project

- if not, if I can read or study

- if I could sleep (I find it hard, but sometimes it works)

But it is tiring to be away from home 10-11 hours a day just to fill 40 hours.

Yep. I'll add though, personally I was happier doing a 90 minute train commute than a 45 minute drive by car. Seemed doubly productive because I spent the commute time working on a fun side project and not battling with my negative inner monologue about other drivers.

That seems like good advice. I currently commute 20 minutes and it's fine. Not too long, but long enough that work is far away. But if it were half again as long I'd probably get stabby.

Fifteen minutes does seem a good time, too far to pop in on a whim but not so far that the daily journey is onerous. Bonus points if it’s a fifteen minute walk.

Piling on, I’d also recommend against a 15 hour workday.

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