How Do You Spend Your Saved Commute Time?

October 31, 2007 · Filed Under WFH · Comment 

Given my 70 minutes a day saved from telecommuting established in the previous post, here is where I see that time being consumed:

1. Sleep. I probably get 1-2 hours more sleep per night than the average person, including my wife. I believe that adequate (or even abundant) sleep makes me more effective in the things that I do during the day and I’m convinced that aging is slowed slightly and shows less on my face than my haggard-looking, sleep-deprived commuting friends out there (I still get carded at 39 years of age when buying alcohol).

2. Cook a “real” dinner. My wife is the beneficiary of a mostly “from scratch” dinner every night. While not extravagant, it is usually healthy and complete in nutrition. If you haven’t bought a steam oven yet for your home - I highly recommend it.

3. Hobbies. Blogging is certainly one of my newest hobbies and having extra time per day to pursue that and interests helps me recharge my batteries.

Everyone has their own thoughts on how they (would) spend their extra time. I’d be curious to hear from others.

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How Much Time is Saved by Telecommuting?

October 28, 2007 · Filed Under WFH · Comment 

I estimate that I retain an extra 70 minutes of my life per day by not commuting to a conventional business office. This assumes that I would be working about 25 minutes away, which I feel would be a likely commute given the suitable companies in that driving radius from my home. I’m unable to move residences to minimize commute time further due to the necessity to stay where we are due to the need to retain a reasonable driving distance for my wife (who commutes 35 minutes each way).

Here’s the breakdown of how I save 70 minutes a day telecommuting:

50 minutes driving time, round-trip
10 minutes dressing for business
10 minutes parking, getting into the building, getting nabbed for watercooler talk, etc.

I would bet that for others, 70 minutes could be a conservative estimate of time savings. I know numerous friends and family members that have much more of a commute than 25 minutes one-way, including my wife. There are probably other categories of time savings that I’m not including such as increased car refueling stops and frequency of automobile service visits, etc., but I’ve kept my list to the items that occur on a daily basis.

When you take out 9 hours of sleep (which I personally require), 9 hours of work daily (which I will use as a typical average workday across all disciplines), you will have 6 hours left to “live your life”. Based on those numbers, it’s not a stretch to to estimate that telecommuters can have 24% more “life” time than the average commuter during the work week.

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Working From Home

October 26, 2007 · Filed Under WFH, telecommuting · Comment 


Here I go with another blog, and yet another topic near and dear to my heart. With “The WFH Professional” blog, I intend to explore the various aspects of the Work From Home lifestyle and try to interact with others who do work at home or would like to in future, as I have been doing for the past 8 years.

Pull up a chair, subscribe to the blog, and please do provide your comments along the way.

As I mentioned before, it has been about 8 years of working from home for me with the vast majority of that time spent truly at home and not flexing or hoteling in company offices. The first 8 years were with a major California-based computer hardware manufacturer and I have recently switched to another major corporation and both positions have been serving the software consulting industry. My WFH experiences will be conveyed from corporate America, working for mainstream companies and this blog will resemble nothing of sites that blog about pursuing get-rich-quick schemes, making money online, or taking envelope stuffing jobs.

I’ll dip into topics relating to my thoughts and experiences on the topic as well as try to reach around the web and point out other pertinent sites or posts on working from home as well as profile products that I have used or look appealing that are related to supporting a WFH lifestyle.

I’d be interested in hearing from others who have been working from home for some time. How long has it been for you?

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