It’s 5:52 a.m. in Moynihan Train Hall. I’m balancing a container of fruit and my water bottle in one hand while tightening the straps of a backpack that’s weighed down by two laptops with the other.
It’s the start of my twice-weekly commute between New York City and Washington, DC.
I’m five months into this supercommute, and I can practically traverse the Northeast Corridor in my sleep. More importantly, I’ve learned how to turn eight hours on Amtrak trains into one of the most productive parts of my workweek.
This arrangement lets me refine my career in DC without leaving NYC
At 26, I’m still early in my career and figuring out which corner of my industry feels most like home.
I moved to New York four years ago to broadly pursue publishing and was working in lifestyle journalism when a welcome opportunity to pivot into academic publishing came along.
As someone whose soft science degree has been collecting dust in my childhood bedroom closet, I was excited by the chance to do something new, something that would satisfy the research-loving part of my brain.
The only catch, as you might have guessed, was that this career pivot seemed to involve a move to Washington, DC. The full-time, hybrid role required me to be in the office on Mondays and Wednesdays.
If the only thing standing between me and what I hoped would be a career-refining opportunity was a twice-weekly office requirement, and the fact that I wasn’t ready to leave the life I’d built in New York, who’s to say I couldn’t, in the spirit of early-2000s icon Hannah Montana, get the best of both worlds?
Before accepting the role, I weighed everything from ticket costs to the risk of commuting burnout.
I knew I’d have to be vigilant about monitoring Amtrak flash sales and planning my trips well in advance, but by booking tickets five to six weeks ahead, I could keep my train costs to around $100 round trip.
Just as importantly, having family in Northern Virginia meant I could stay in the DC area between workdays rather than making four longer train trips each week.
Spending up to $400 a month on transit to work might seem excessive to some, but when I considered everything this new job would allow me to have while still maintaining my life in New York, it felt like a worthwhile living expense to start budgeting for.
I’ve made my train rides a productive part of my workday
My commuting style is likely nightmare-fuel for type-A travelers, but after making this trip so many times, I can confidently get from my apartment in Washington Heights to the Penn Station concourse in under 30 minutes.
This morning, that meant walking out the door for the subway around 5:25 a.m. to catch the 6:10 a.m. Acela to DC. The extra 30 minutes of sleep the high-speed train affords is a rare treat, since most Mondays I take the 5:40 a.m. Northeast Regional instead.
Once I’m settled into my seat (always a window seat, and today a reserved table bay), I pull out my laptop, not my 9-to-5 work computer, but the one I use for my freelance work.
As is common for many creatives, I’ve balanced remote freelance assignments alongside on-site, full-time roles for most of my career.
When I started my new job in DC, I worried that a supercommute would make it impossible to maintain my freelance work alongside a full-time role. Instead, the opposite proved true: My commute created the dedicated time I needed to make both work.
One advantage of being on a train for up to eight hours a week (about three to four hours each way) is that there’s nowhere else to be and not much else to do. My commute has become a built-in block of uninterrupted, billable time.
For the next few hours, thanks to my phone’s personal WiFi hot spot, I’ll be able to work through my inbox, edit a few projects, and send invoices.
It’s work I would otherwise have to cram in after an eight-hour workday, but instead, I get to tackle it while relatively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed between 6 and 9 a.m.
As Washington, DC, comes into view around 9:04 a.m., I check Metro times to see if the Red Line will get me to the office by 9:30 a.m. or if I’ll need to call a rideshare.
For the next 72 hours, I’m basically a DMV resident, and on Wednesday evening, I’ll reverse my commute back to New York.
In some ways, I get the best of both worlds
I’ve come to realize everyone has their own version of an unconventional work-life balance.
In fact, on my very first day at this new job, I rode the elevator with a coworker who commutes between DC and New Jersey on a schedule surprisingly similar to mine.
For me, the long train rides are a small price to pay for a role that lets me lean into the parts of publishing I’ve always wanted to explore. Plus, I’ve found ways to maximize my routine, both in transit and when I’m settled in each location for part of the week.
While I’m in the DC area, I get weeknight dinners and ordinary evenings with my parents, who I’d otherwise only see a few times a year. I also make time for self-care activities like yoga classes and long evening walks in suburbia with our family dog.
And by Thursday morning, I’m back in New York. I can co-work with friends who also work remotely, say yes to last-minute plans and birthday dinners, and still feel like I’m living in the city I worked so hard to build a life in.
Read the full article here
