Recent data indicated that from 2006 to 2019, the average one-way commute for an American worker rose from 25 minutes to 27.6 minutes.
The pandemic was a bit of a reprieve for many workers. The average commute time slipped back to 25.6 minutes, but as employees began returning to the office, the 2022 average commute was back up to 26.4 minutes
That’s 52.8 minutes round trip.
More than 13,200 minutes per year for anyone working five days per week, 50 weeks per year.
About 220 hours per year.
A little more than nine days per year spent commuting to work.
About 2.5 percent of an entire year.
Almost 4 percent of the average time spent awake in any given year.
That is an enormous amount of time moving back and forth between two places.
For many people, their commute is non-negotiable. Unless they want to live in the middle of the city where they work or start sleeping under the desk, they will need to commute to work, and that commute may be lengthy.
I get it.
But I am always quick to remind people that time is our most precious (and most wasted) resource, so when you are choosing where to live and your place of employment, carefully consider your commute time. Many factors should be considered when making these choices, of course, but the time it takes to get to and from work should be one of those factors given the amount of time you might be spending away from your friends, your family, and anything else you might want to be doing with that time.
An hour per day is an enormous amount of time. It’s about six percent of the average time spent awake every day.
That’s gigantic.
I live less than five minutes from the school where I work. My commute, roundtrip, is less than 10 minutes per day.
Even though I’ve lived in five different homes in the past 25 years (two houses and three apartments), my commute has always been about five minutes.
This was not by accident. Elysha and I chose a home near our places of employment, and before Elysha, I did the same for myself. We passed on certain wants and desires in favor of proximity to the school where we worked.
Time, we decided, was more important than central air or additional kitchen counter space.
In fact, for the past 30 years, I have lived less than ten minutes from my place of employment.
This was also not by accident. I chose my homes, and in some cases, my workplaces, to maximize my time and reduce my commute.
The average American has spent about 275 days commuting back and forth to work over the last 30 years.
I’ve spent less than 40. It’s still an enormous, horrendous number, but not even close to the commute time of the average American.
When people wonder how I seem to get so much accomplished in my life, there are many answers. I wrote a whole book, Someday Is Today: 22 Simple Actionable Steps to Propel Your Creative Life, just to answer that question.
It’s available online, by the way, or wherever you get books. It also makes a great holiday gift, and if you’d like a signed copy, simply sign my name and tell the recipient that I signed the book.
I’ll never tell.
But in addition to the many ideas in that book, this is part of that answer, and it’s a simple one:
I’ve had an extra 235 days to accomplish goals over the last three decades compared to the average American.
More than two extra months per decade.
For a long, long time – ever since a gun was pressed to my head and I thought my life was over – I have been exceedingly deliberate with my time. I have factored time into most of my decision-making. As a result, I often manage to squeeze more minutes from the day than most people, and that has made an enormous difference in my life.
For many, their commute is non-negotiable. I understand this. For many, nothing can be done to reduce their time spent in a car or on public transportation.
But some people like to tell me that they love their commute. It’s their alone time. A chance to listen to music or a book. Decompress. Get lost in thought. I understand this, and I, too, value this kind of time, but you need not be locked into a 50-minute roundtrip drive to and from work every day to accomplish these goals. The same thing could be done with a ten-minute commute and a 40-minute walk around the neighborhood with some earbuds, and you can get a little exercise in the process.
Or if it’s the driving and isolation of the car that you adore, how about a ten-minute commute home and a 40-minute drive wherever the hell you want to go, along with the optionality to toss aside that long drive on any day when a better option is available or you need to be home to meet the furnace technician?
My round-trip commute is less than ten minutes, but it wouldn’t take much effort to turn it into a 50-minute, traffic-free scenic drive if I needed some quiet time in the car.
Again, I know these options don’t exist for many people. The commute is simply non-negotiable given the nature of their work.
But for many others, decisions can be made to reduce your commute time. I’m not suggesting that it’s the most important factor is choosing your home or your place of employment, but it might be.
It should at least be a seriously considered part of the decision-making process.
Sadly, I have I’ve watched many people fail to account for the massive loss in time that a new job or a promotion will cause. Earning more money is a fantastic idea, and climbing that ladder to nowhere can be rewarding, but when it comes alongside an additional hour or two spent driving in the car, it’s oftentimes not worth it.
The average American spends more than 50 minutes per day shuffling back and forth to work. That number is staggering, tragic, and appalling to me.
Maybe, hopefully, for you, too.
