Living in a single-family house with my wife and baby got me thinking: what is the ideal commute time to work? Currently, my door-to-door drive time is 22-23 minutes for both the morning and afternoon/evening legs to the day. Prior to fellowship, I was lucky enough to have a 4-5 minute commute from my apartment to the hospital. Clearly, shorter is always better… right? Well, it depends. I’ve learned that a mild-moderate drive to/from work is actually therapeutic! It allows me enough time to focus on cases that day (morning drive), and it also allows me to decompress after exceptionally busy days. In short, I think a drive to/from work and home of 20-30 minutes is ideal. In our next home, I hope we can find a nice safe neighborhood for our child while allowing for a reasonable drive to work.
Photo by Sylvia Zhou.