I wonder how much improvement in morale can be attributed to not having a commute. I wonder if people who have a short walk to work are even happier than people who work from home, broadly speaking.
I can't find a citation, but I believe that I read that a 20 minute addition to your commute has the same long-term quality of life impact as losing function in a limb.
This is for two reasons: firstly, the long term impact of losing function in a limb is far less than people think, and the long term impact of an increased commute is far more than people think.
I'm having trouble seeing that. When the company I worked for moved 15 miles closer to home, my commute dropped from about an hour to less than 10 minutes. It had very little impact on my QOL.
Likewise, when I decided to move 20 minutes farther away, my QOL actually improved, since I liked the area I lived in much more and there was more stuff to do after work.
I find that surprising you say that. I also work ~10 minutes from my home and also ~15 from where I practice martial arts and go the gym at. For me, being able to wake, get cleaned-up, dressed and out the door...then leave work go straight to the gym and go home makes a drastic difference in how I feel. Even just 20 minutes saved on each end of the day is an extra half-hour to get home and start getting settled. As they say...different strokes for different folks!
Because when it was taking me 1 hour to get to work it was about 20 minutes walking to train station, wait 5-10 mins for train, 20 minute train ride reading books/magazines, 5-10 minute walk to work. Fairly enjoyable.
After the move, it was about a 7-12 minute drive to work. Much shorter, but I liked being able to walk before and I could read or nap on the train. Had I been driving to work (instead of taking the train) before, it would have been a 1-2 hour stressful commute in heavy traffic.
As I read what I just wrote, I wonder if the reason for the "loss of limb" comparison is that the 20 minute commute they used as a reference is in heavy traffic. I have a 35-45 minute drive to work 2x a day now and again, dropping it to 15 minutes wouldn't be a big deal for me, but it is a very relaxing commute mostly along country roads where I get to drive at a consistently high speed.
Not saying that I agree or disagree with the hypothesis, but it does assume that all other variables remain the same. By moving to a different area with more stuff to do, you invalidate the experiment. That's akin to saying exercising everyday for an hour did not improve your health because you got hit by a car one day while running.
Ah, the study I was talking about was covering car commuting, only. Public transit has a different cost curve, clearly - one more related to how long you spend waiting than how long you spend riding.
[anecdotal] Last year I would allocate 4 hours a day for commuting to Chicago via train. I now commute 2-4 hours via car to work. I thoroughly enjoyed my commute to Chicago for quite/reading time and predictability. I hate my commute to work now. I will be moving closer soon.
I envy everyone who has access to public transportation to work. My commute is 1 hour maximum, but usually around 30-40 minutes, but even then, I daydream sometimes about being able to read or write while commuting.
I have started listening to podcasts on my commute, and it's much more enjoyable than my music collection or any of the radio options here. I definitely should have started doing it earlier.
I had a 3 minute walk to work at my last job.. Even though the walk was great to get out and get sun and fresh air, there's still the downside of having to prepare, and be in the office. I hope never again to have to work in a situation where I don't work from home. Working from home is orders of magnitude better as far as my happiness goes, and I find that I am literally 3x more productive in getting my own work done (as opposed to being in the office and spending 3 hrs on my own work, and 5 hrs on everyone else's problems). I can actually see years being added to my life by working from home. Having to go in the office really turned me into a shadow of a person, and I actually saw myself aging.
Last time I had two job offers, I chose a nice 12-mile bike commute over telecommuting. About 90% of the time, I'm happy with that decision. (The other 10% of days involve bad weather or rude drivers.)
Of course, if I were telecommuting I could just go take a bike ride at lunchtime on nice days, and not have to deal with darkness or bad weather or packing work clothes or rush hour traffic. Though I worry that I wouldn't.
Not having a nasty commute would surely be an improvement, but the social aspect of working face-to-face with your coworkers has a morale value as well (I've found).
