I got a recent email from an entrepreneur I know:
"My day started off at 4:30am. I first headed into my home office (3rd bedroom, with 5 computers, printers, fax and phones, etc.)to check email. I responded to a few emails and checked to see if there were any client emails waiting for the morning staff. I then showered, dressed, went back to check email and pack up my laptop. Grabbed a quick drink of juice and headed out the door at 5:15am to catch a train today (I avoid the ferry on weather predictions of storms with high winds that turn into high seas). I arrived at the train station in time to buy a ticket and make the 5:38am Express to New York City. On the train I opened my laptop and continued reading and answering some emails that I did not have time to answer before leaving the house. I then started writing up some notes for using our new Talent Search tool from Hotjobs. I checked my palm pilot for my never ending, multiple list of priorities for the day and moved a few things around, since I would only be in the office today for maybe a half hour. The train ride was uneventful, and seems to go fairly quick when I’ve got my laptop and email to read and write. I arrived at Penn Station, New York about 6:50am. I walk to the other side of Penn Station and catch a Subway to the Port Authority station at Times Square, where I walk over to the Shuttle Train that runs along 42nd Street. I arrived in my office at 7:10am. I quickly put together some client packs printed out copies of the PowerPoint templates I was going to review with the clients, and copied the files to a few CD-ROMs to hand out. I checked my email again, checked the fax in the office, and then headed back out to the Shuttle train and then to the Subway and back to Penn Station to catch an 8:30am Amtrak train to Boston. The train ride provided some good uninterrupted time to write emails and some talent search documents, make a few phone calls and read a few documents: new insurance info, and employee policy documents. I arrived at Boston on time, caught a cab to the client facility. Went to the visitor’s center and then caught the company shuttle bus to the office building where my meeting would be. At this point I had been on 9 different transportation vehicles. The client met me at the reception area and we went to the cafeteria to grab some lunch. Since I was early she set me up in a vacant office (seem to be plenty of them around). I reviewed my presentation and decided to move it from regular template into the new client template I was going to show them.This took me about an hour. I made a few more phone calls and wrote another email or two. The meeting started a little late, waiting for one attendee. I gave a few premiums- they all loved them. Stacy gave me a very nice introduction – "we are her PowerPoint saviors and do wonderful work". I went through our standard pitch with a few "visual value" bullets and slides thrown in while doing the template conversion. The presentation was well received. As with one of my selling points "slides with good visual value can help a meeting end on time or early", we ended 20 minutes early. Back to the train station via taxi, had to wait an hour for the next train and then could not get my business class seat – it was sold out or over sold, because of the storm in NY, all the Boston air commuters jumped on the train. There are some schedule backups due to a snow storm in NY that is headed our way or we are headed into it. At the moment we are sitting here going nowhere, no lights, no power. If I’m lucky I will make it to NYC by 7:30 and catch a 7:30 or 8:05 train to Little Silver and arrive home some time between 9:30 and 10pm. I will then plug in my laptop, check email, check in with the office and then try to get to sleep at a reasonable time, so I can start again at 4:30am tomorrow. But tomorrow, I can take the ferry, if the river is not frozen. . . doesn’t Spring start soon? The 8:30 Train that I caught was about 30 minutes late – turned into a 2 hour train ride. My car has a 1/2 inch of ice to get scraped off in sub-zero temps with big wind gusts that seem to blow the skin off my face. Driving home was like ice skating with Volkswagon Bug size ice skates. Home at 10:45pm. Another fun day. When does it get better?"
It gets better when you realize you don’t have to live 2+ hours away from your office.
Commuting is such a drain on time and money. 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. thats 1000 hours of commuting.