Ask HN: How can I reclaim some of my commute time?
Right now I spend around 2 hours a day in traffic commuting to & from work. I don't have a viable public transportation option to get back and forth from work.
I feel like I'm wasting 10 hours a week on autopilot. What do you guys do during your commute? There's got to be something that I can do to make better use of that time - audiobooks, or a tape recorder, or something.
What do you guys do to make use of long commute times?
56 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadPimsleur language courses are a pretty cool idea though. My Spanish has deteriorated to the point of essentially useless (I was never fluent).
I've also been enjoying the "How Stuff Works" podcasts. Their "Stuff you missed in history class" is especially interesting. Lots of stuff from the well known "Pompeii's excavation" to the esoteric "The great molasses flood of 1916".
The big concern for urban centres today are LPG storage tanks as they can BLEVE. It doesn't usually require any structural failure, just plain bad luck.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__1Ym_F94CE&feature=relat...
This was in north Toronto last year. IIRC a tanker caught fire at a propane refuelling facility, you can actually see the shockwave caused by the BLEVE, which was quickly followed by the massive fireball (not all BLEVE's explode, it can happen with any heated liquid from superheated water in a boiler to liquid nitrogen warming to room temperature in an enclosed vessel).
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-JgyQA7u0&feature=relat...
This is a demo video, with a decent explanation for anyone who doesn't know what a BLEVE is. It sometimes seems like the safety mechanism doesn't help, but it really does by controlling the release of energy. Fire fighters usually try to cool the tank rather than put out the fire (usually in these cases it's too dangerous to get close enough to actually try to fight the preliminary fire) as the longer the tank stays intact, the less dangerous the explosion will be. If it doesn't vent at all, you eventually get this supersized and with authentic flames:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWmONHipVo&feature=fvw
I can see your point about LPG storage tanks. It's interesting how many dangers lie all about us in the modern world but we either don't know about them or simply ignore them...
I know back in England an old house on the main road had a BLEVE from one of these large tanks, it collapsed the rear wall and the interior structural walls, meaning the entire place was torn down. Virtually every window on the street, and the adjacent street, were shattered by the blast (including vehicle windows). The fire fighters believed the tank had been damaged by a falling slate roof tile, and the fence provided the fuel to cause the BLEVE. A year or two later and the UK brought out a law requiring large tanks to be changed by professionals, I believe Canada has similar regulations as well.
I only know I wouldn't want an explosion like that happening near a cottage (where I've also seen a lot of the larger tanks).
You then have an extra day, essentially a 3-day-weekend every week. This can actually dramatically decrease costs, not only time wise and fuel wise, but if you have children who have to go into daycare or to a babysitter after school then it means lower childcare expenses. Not only that, but having a friday or monday off means you can get groceries and such done during the day and well out of the supermarket rush hours; you wouldn't believe how empty stores can be even before a major holiday.
Swapping, not only yourself but your workers too, to a 4 day week could keep you able to be there directing people, it'll at least take 1/5 of your wasted commute time and it could potentially shorten your commute dramatically if you commute time gets pushed outside of rush hour. It could seriously raise the happiness level in your office, and thus the productivity ('a happy worker is a busy worker'). Hopefully this is a suggestion that could work for you.
I agree it's ultimately harder, especially with younger children, on those days that you'll work harder. It will inevitably be a personal choice whether seeing them a bit every night is more important than seeing them a lot on one night.
All I can say is from personal experience as a child with a parent who worked those shifts (I haven't got kids yet, so I can't speak from the parental perspective). My dad regularly worked those shifts, and when I was younger it was certainly tough (its a little different in your teen years when you're up later and more independent), but the fridays he got off were always worth it. I remember getting off school and we actually had the time to go to a theme park on my birthday (I believe he switched his shifts to get a tuesday off) or that we'd get to go to the movies or bowling before they got packed on a friday evening.
I can't say not having your dad there wouldn't be hard on a kid (in the last few years, and the reason why he left the job, he had to work away from home so then the 4 day week really helped as he wasn't home for 3 nights instead of 4 nights), but from my own experience the quality time certainly made up for it and in hindsight I think I actually preferred when he had the 4 day weeks.
Perhaps it would be more of a win-win when they're in high school rather than junior school as with the amount of homework that gets dumped on the teens, they'll barely notice if you're an hour or two later home.
I suppose it all depends on you as the parent, your spouse/partner and your kids. 5 days may be best for you, 4 days may be better for others, but a trial-run for a month might give you a clue as to which you and your family prefer.
We're a pretty happy office already, and some people here are already using a 9 day out of 10 work schedule. I'll think some on this. Thank you!
Keep the option open to drive in when it becomes necessary. Whether a "must be present" meeting, crunch time, or the shit hits the fan and being onsite outweighs the drive time.
If you can't make the timing regular, you may be screwed. If you're remote on random days, people are less likely to adjust well.
I worked with a fellow who, due to his brilliance and historical knowledge, often ended up being THE go to guy in such scenarios. Nonetheless, he made remote days work. (It helped that our team was becoming increasingly virtual, anyways, as we absorbed new members from an acquisition, etc.) People learned that if they needed him face to face, they'd better bring the topic up before his remote day (or wait).
He loved how much more he was able to get done without people stopping by his cube multiple times each hour.
edit: I have family+friends 4 hours away and gf 2 hours away, so I spend a huge amount of time behind the wheel as well. I download courses from iTunes U, OCW or individual universities' web sites. I also follow a few podcasts. The skeptic's guide to the universe is decent, radiolab is great. I'm half way done through Yale's Bob Schiller's "Financial Markets" class, and its been great.
I'd probably look at moving close enough to where I could ride my bike.
Hills and unsafe roads permitting anyway.
If you can manage the latter then you can look at what stuff gets posted to HN that ends up on scribd, put them on your e-reader and you'll have your commute fly by, you might have to take detours :)
That's what I'm waiting for to hop on the bandwagon, it seems like wasted money to buy the small one first then to upgrade.
If you played with speech synthesis in the 80s or 90s, you'll still hear that faint Swedish? accent, but really, it's totally usable in my opinion.
2. Get a spacious car where you can work in the back,
3. Get a high-speed UMTS/HSDPA subscription.
4. Get a driver that earns at least 50% less per hour than you.
5. Work from your car and bill the time.
1. Podcasts - Venture Voice and The Moth are two easy recommends. You could try to get old Radio GoDaddy podcasts back when they had entrepreneurs on.
2. Audio Books - Audible.com/Amazon/Library/etc. are great sources. I've managed to listen to quite a few.
3. Satellite radio: I got a cheap XM set and rigged it up to my car a couple months back. I haven't listened to terrestrial radio since. Just about any music you'd want, plus news from all kinds of sources.
Edit to add Satellite radio
Sorry, just saw you're in traffic. My commute is mostly on rural roads, no traffic to speak of and much more relaxing than city/crowded interstate driving.
Then, get this: http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/landing/consumer.asp (DNS will probably fail in a noisy car, but worth a shot)
Dictate code on the road.
Edit: Be sure to configure a bunch of commands/templates in DNS so you can generate blocks of helper code.
Edit: Potentially related video (haven't watched, just found it while Googling) http://revver.com/video/348539/driving-writing-with-dragon-n...
IMO, you can get good enough at this that the amount of distraction is pretty small. Equivalent, perhaps, to the amount of distraction involved in changing radio stations. But, you would need some self-discipline to achieve this.
Also, I am not really talking about creating compileable code. You would use this to mockup a solution. Like pseudo-code, only a bit more fleshed-out.
Edit: I didn't address the main point of your reply...
"I don't understand how one can share one's attention between driving and a screen without increasing the risk to get into an accident."
Yes, using this idea you might be increasing your risk of an accident.
However, have you ever tried programming using text-to-speech? It strikes me as an experience that would be maddening.
I have thought about taking a voice recorder with me just to dictate ideas though.
Yes, this idea works best for long stretches of road with little traffic. The 45 mile stretch of highway I drive on is isolated.
"However, have you ever tried programming using text-to-speech? It strikes me as an experience that would be maddening."
Try downloading the evaluation version of DNS and give it a spin. I think you'll feel the potential pretty quickly, especially if you try making custom commands. The cumbersome nature of the speech-to-text interface may prove too much, but it's worth a try right?
What is maddening to me is giving up ~2 hours of the most productive time of the day. I was even desperate enough to try programming on a phone (a Peek email device).
"I have thought about taking a voice recorder with me just to dictate ideas though."
I've tried this as well, and it is not ideal. If you have ever sat down to design something and within minutes you abandon the design to start coding, you'll understand. Coding is the low-energy state.
1. Move closer to work.
2. Find a way to work from home as much as possible.
3. When you do need to drive in, podcasts are much better than the radio.
4. Find a car that you love to drive. This may be easier for me, since I generally enjoy driving, even in traffic.
Now, I'm in a situation where I can easily move, it's easy for me to work from home and I can afford cars I love to drive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/technology/01distracted.ht...
This is awesome, because I have so many options available. If there's a huge thunderstorm or a blizzard, I can walk a block to a bus stop and get picked up by this horribly slow bus that takes all side-streets and stops at practically every major intersection to pick people up or drop people off. But it beats driving, and I can read, or crack open my laptop and do whatever.
If I want a good workout, I have a 14.5 mile bike ride to work, and I can pull it off in about an hour, which is great cardio. In the summer time, I can get 2 hours of cardio, save money on gas and parking fees, and spend only an hour more on my commute than if I drove to the office. I essentially get a two-hour workout in one hour.
Then, in cold or rainy weather that's not terrible, I can ride my bike to the express bus stop and get downtown in time to hang out with some friends over a cup of coffee before work.
Moving closer to the office is probably the best thing I ever did for myself.
I take it you are driving, but for people that get public transport I would plead Do Not Read Newspapers - they will only make you feel anxious, depressed or angry at the start of the day. It's more enjoyable and effective to read a book on a subject you want to learn about or something fictional for escapism.
I've listened to probably more than 20 in the last two years ranging from the Count of Monte Cristo to all of Malcom Gladwell's work to Investing for Dummies. It's a great way to make the most out of your commute because if you're like me, you probably don't have time to read all of those in your free time anyway.
You can pick up an iTrip (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/itripauto) for about $60 at Target to use with your iPhone and audiobooks usually range from about $10 to $30.
As a start, I highly recommend Bill Byrson's unabridged A Short History of Nearly Everything, which I've listened to four times now (and counting!).
I tried listening various lectures, but at some point it becomes too difficult to follow because I'm unable to write down/work through anything as I'm driving. I found a few podcasts, but the content was largely hit or miss.
Any suggestions would be awesome.