About 20 years ago, I landed my first real, high-impact job at an upstart consulting agency in Washington DC that came from the ashes of the Howard Dean campaign. Unfortunately, I had also just signed a lease on an apartment in the town I lived in, a two hour drive from downtown DC.

I spent the first year at that job commuting into DC 2-3 days/week, which involved about an hour drive, then an hour regional commuter train, then some Metro transfer and walking — then back again in the evening. I spent that train time offline (as it was 2004) learning the Apple Cocoa frameworks, as in another twist of fate, the company was entirely Apple laptop-based, which was fairly rare for 2004, and I built tools for the team and myself. The focus possible because I was offline, with comprehensive docs, was pretty intense and was a huge part of many aspects of my career to follow.