Dina Gerdeman* says new research suggests workers benefit from using their daily commute to think about work, mentally mapping out a plan for their day.
Photo: João Jesus
Workers commute an average 38 minutes each way between home and work — a trip that can feel like a dreadful chore before the workday even begins.
Recent research provides some advice to ease the pain of the commute: employees should think about work on the way to work by mentally mapping out a plan for their day.
By using the travel time as an opportunity to get into the work mindset, employees are giving themselves a chance to make an easier mental shift from their home role to their work role, and ultimately, this makes people feel happier about their jobs, according to the working paper Between Home and Work: Commuting as an Opportunity for Role Transitions .
Meanwhile, doing relaxing or purely pleasurable things on the way to the office may actually interfere with people’s ability to transition into work mode smoothly — which makes them feel gloomier.
“I was surprised with this finding myself,” Harvard Business School Professor and co-author of the paper Francesca Gino says.
“The idea that we need to work to transition from our home role to our work role is not always intuitive … transitioning between roles takes time and effort, and it’s a part of the day we need to pay more attention to.”
Workers with long commutes dislike their jobs more
Previous research shows the longer people commute, the lower their job satisfaction.
In one 2006 survey, people said that the morning journey between house and office was their least desirable activity of the day.
Commutes are stressful partly because people are unsure how long the trip will take, and if bad traffic makes them late for meetings, they start the workday feeling rushed and on edge.
“You can’t adapt to commuting because it’s entirely unpredictable,” psychologist Daniel Gilbert says in the working paper.
“Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.”
Gino and her colleagues set out to look at why commuting rubs us the wrong way, who is most affected by travelling long distances to work, and how people can better cope with the trip.
They found that during a lengthy commute, employees are in limbo between their home and work roles.
This unstructured time gives rise to “role ambiguity,” leaving people with the unpleasant feeling of being unsure what they’re expected to do.
Yet, although people say they dislike commuting, when asked about the “ideal” commute length, workers don’t say “zero.”
One study finds the optimal commuting time to be 16 minutes.
Some workers struggle with commuting more than others
The results of three studies by Gino and her team show that the morning commute is harder on certain types of people:
People with lower “trait self-control”: Workers with high levels of trait self-control have a keen ability to regulate their behaviour, thoughts, and emotions.
These employees set goals for themselves, keep focused, and stay on track with their goals.
They tend to take commuting more in stride, since they naturally transition into their work role more easily by setting priorities for the day ahead.
Meanwhile, workers with lower levels of trait self-control don’t plan ahead as much and are more likely to engage in thoughts and behaviours that are rewarding in the moment, like listening to music or daydreaming.
But these relaxing activities during the commute can actually hinder their ability to seamlessly transition into their work role.
People with high levels of “work-family conflict”: Workers often feel intense pressure from both their home and work roles, with the two roles seeming incompatible at times.
Employees may have trouble, for example, finding a comfortable balance between juggling the needs of their young children along with the requests of a demanding boss.
This conflict in roles can lead to burnout, guilt, and hostility both at work and at home — and, in the extreme, even poor health among working adults.
Employees with greater work — family conflict have a tougher time transitioning to their work roles, and as a result, a long commute takes a bigger toll on these workers.
Gino and her colleagues found that the employees who wrestle the most with commuting also benefit the most from the mental transition strategy they recommend called “role-clarifying prospection” — thoughts about the tasks they’d like to accomplish during their upcoming role at work.
The strategy shifts people’s attention from what is happening in the present — the not-so-fun commute — to thoughts that give them a head start with work.
This “future focus” adds some structure to what is typically unstructured time and allows people to feel prepared for the day ahead.
The research suggests that this “role-clarifying prospection” strategy may also work in reverse, so people should avoid ruminating about work-related problems during the trip home.
Letting work go during the evening commute by thinking about what to make for dinner or what activities to enjoy with the children will likely help people transition to their home roles more easily.
Although the strategy helped commuters during the four-week study, it’s unclear whether it would have lasting effects in the long term, the researchers acknowledge.
But the team points out that if the strategy becomes a habit, it might not take much effort to train ourselves to engage in thoughts during the commute that prepare us for the role ahead.
* Dina Gerdeman is a writer and editor at Harvard Business School and CMO.com.
This article first appeared at hbswk.hbs.edu/
