Reflection is particularly helpful on the evening commute, after the working day is done. Perhaps the commute also offers an opportunity to tap into deeper levels of creativity, even as we’re jostled along in a jam-packed bus or train. The idea of prospection may run even deeper than just thinking about our working day. Those employees that engaged in some degree of prospection were found to have greater job satisfaction and improved work-related outcomes. Jachimowicz and his colleagues derived these conclusions from three field studies where employees were given questions about the length of their commute, the level of their job satisfaction, and whether or not they thought about work on route. When this happens the demands in one domain may “deplete mental resources (such as time, energy and mood) and reduce accomplishments in the other”. When you go into work and you’re still in your home role, you often have conflict between the home-related identities and your work-related identities,” says Jachimowicz. “It’s not as easy as switching from one role to the next. In other words, the commute acts as a transitional buffer. “Through role-clarifying prospection, employees mentally shift their attention from what they are experiencing in the present - thoughts pertaining to their commute, or thoughts unrelated to their past or future role - to what they will be experiencing when they arrive at work, namely, thoughts pertaining to their workday,” the authors write. A new study, co-authored by Jachimowicz, examines the function of the commute as a psychological threshold between home and work.Īccording to the study, the daily commute offers an opportunity for people to engage in “role-clarifying prospection”, meaning it gives them time and space to think about the upcoming work role. ![]() “You can’t disentangle home and work anymore, and that’s not always easy,” says Jon Jachimowicz, an assistant professor in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Yet, for those of us at home with our commutes on pause, are we realising that those bookends to our working day may have served an important purpose after all? And those who are currently travelling to worksites may well be dreading their daily journey and the health risk that it brings. Numerous studies and surveys have found that commuting is people’s least favourite activity, including one by Ford Motor Company, which revealed the journey to work to be more stressful than the actual job (or a visit to the dentist). On its face, Loughney’s view may seem surprising. There is no separation, and the commute provided that mental separation.” You’re working through dinner you’re working after dinner you’re working after you put your kids down to bed. need to always be on, to always be working. “Working from home – for those of us fortunate enough to be still working – has brought an added layer of stress. ![]() “It’s pitifully sad to say that, but it’s true,” she says. Now, after several weeks of working from home, Loughney admits that she actually misses her commute. That was before the Covid-19 stay-at-home order stopped everyone in their tracks. It involved three modes of transport: a bus to drop off her baby daughter at day-care, then a packed subway carriage into Manhattan’s Financial District and finally a brisk 15-minute walk to the office. Typically, it would take her more than an hour to travel from her home in Astoria, Queens to her office at a management consultancy on Wall Street. Like many New Yorkers, Meg Loughney faced a stressful daily commute.
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