Create a Commute If You Work from Home!

Fake it!

Photo by Tom Sodoge on Unsplash

Throughout my early twenties, I worked in the hospitality industry. Sometimes it was part-time while studying and other times it was full time. For those of you who have had the pleasure of working in a restaurant or pub, you’ll know that with those kinds of jobs comes a lot of walking. It was not uncommon for me to hit 30,000 steps in a day on a busy day. It helped that I’d also walk between 20 and 45 minutes to work (depending on the job and where I lived.)

Now I work from home, and my commute is the walk from my bedroom to my office… Which I’d guess is about 15 steps. Actually, hang on.

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Ok, it’s 16 steps! Bonus step!

My point is that I’d gone from walking a hell of a lot to a very sedentary lifestyle. Also, since I moved in February I now live in a city centre, so everything is very close by. Even walking to the supermarket to buy groceries is only a ten-minute walk!

I was fast approaching the danger zone of laziness, but honestly, I’d been there a while, chilling on the sofa, eating cookies. Something had to change.

I decided to artificially increase my commute which is a fancy way of saying I got up of my ass and went for a walk at 6am every morning! I’d leave at the same time as my partner left for work, pretending I was also leaving for work. There are two benefits to treating this as an actual commute as opposed to just a walk.

1 — it becomes non-negotiable. If you worked in an office, you’d have no option but to travel to work. And technically I do work in an office. An office with a very relaxed dress code (hello underpants) and authoritarian control over the music. 2 — it means that once you get back from your ‘commute’, you know that it is TIME TO WORK BRADLEY! Not launch yourself down the rabbit hole of YouTube Recommended again!

Obviously, any exercise is good for you, but there are also specific benefits to a brisk walk first thing in the morning.