As recently as two months ago, the 5-mile drive from the heart of Washington, DC, to my home in Arlington, Virginia, consistently took less than 10 minutes door-to-door, even in the middle of rush hour. Now that same 5-mile commute can take as long as 40 minutes. Gone, too, are the days when I could make a quick stop at Trader Joe’s on the drive home, find street parking in front of the store, and get in and out with groceries in less than 20 minutes.
As more employers require workers to return to the office—even if it’s just a few times a week—it’s likely that all the annoying aspects of our pre-pandemic life will start creeping back into our lives—hectic morning routines, traffic, encounters with annoying colleagues, limited time to pick up groceries, and even less time to exercise. All of the healthy habits we created during the pandemic—time for morning meditation, afternoon runs, and nightly family dinners—will be thrown into disarray, too.
“Most people have been working from home for 18 months, and they’ve gotten used to their new habits and are reluctant to change them again,” says Kalina J. Michalska, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Riverside. “We were able to get rid of the annoyances of commuting and being in an office environment, where we have to accommodate our coworkers’ perspectives and goals.”
In fact, during the pandemic, we spent less time driving to the office or around town to do errands and more time pursuing our personal passions. Time spent traveling, such as commuting to work or driving to a store, declined by 26 minutes from an average of 1.2 hours per day in 2019 to 47 minutes per day in 2020, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Americans used the time they didn’t spend commuting to work doing things they enjoy. During 2020, leisure time increased by an average of 37 minutes per day for men and 27 minutes for women, according to the same study.
That might explain why many people are anxious or annoyed about the prospect of going back into the office. “Not only are our routines being disrupted again, but we’re reentering work and school while there is still a tremendous sense of uncertainty,” says Michele Nealon, president of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. For instance, not every employer has decided exactly when workers will return to the office or how many days a week they will need to come in. Even if your manager allows you to continue working from home, you may worry about what effect remote work could have on your career opportunities if some of your colleagues are going into the office while you aren’t, she says.
Many employees are also apprehensive about the Delta variant, a mutation of Covid-19 that is considered to be more contagious than the first strain of the virus. Some companies, including Google and Apple, have pushed their return-to-office dates from September to at least October, and Amazon has pushed its office return to January 2022.
“Employees need to accept the fact that whatever the rules are for going back to the office now—for instance, two days week, with masks—it will likely change over time,” says Nancy Halpern, founder of Political IQ, a New York City–based management consulting firm that helps organizations resolve office politics. As employers struggle to figure out how workers should return to the office, employees will need to be patient, she says. “You’re not going back to the work life you had before,” Halpern says. “The work life you’re going to lead is not going to be settled. It will be frustrating.”
If your employer is moving forward with opening the office and expects to see you there at least a few times a week, there are ways to prepare for that eventual trip, if you plan to return at all.
Most of us have adopted a more leisurely morning routine since the pandemic, whether it’s getting a few extra minutes of sleep by rolling out of bed and immediately logging onto your laptop or lingering over a second cup of coffee while checking email at the kitchen table. For many of us, it’s been more than a year since we had to get fully dressed for work and out the door before 8 am. This fall, more parents will need to get their children to school on time, too, which translates to an even earlier, more chaotic morning.
Before your first day back in the office, Nealon recommends having your entire family practice their morning routine. “Pick a routine, get organized, communicate it, and be consistent in executing it,” she says.
One of the more difficult back-to-work transitions will be to move your afternoon run, workout, or yoga practice to the morning or after work. Before the pandemic, Jennifer Tardy consistently woke up at 4 am to exercise, write in her journal, meditate, or work on a personal project. “I didn’t want to wake up every morning just to go to work,” says Tardy, CEO of Jennifer Tardy Consulting, a career-coaching firm. “I wanted to do what I love and then go to work.” Tardy makes the most of her morning by setting the alarm on her smartphone to go off every hour until 8 am. “It helps me move through the morning by alerting me to the fact that I need to wrap up what I’m working on and move to the next item on my list.” If setting an hourly alarm sounds unappealing, try the Morning Routine Habit Tracker, free for the iPhone. This app allows you to create a list of morning tasks and set a countdown clock for each task you want to complete before you leave for work. If you have a Google Home device, it also has routines that can help.
The drive into the office will likely take as long as it did pre-pandemic, and possibly even longer. According to the 2021 Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, 2021 is already seeing the fastest increase in traffic levels since 1982. Traffic is fueled in part by workers avoiding public transportation. For instance, two in 10 Washington, DC, area residents said they will ride Metro less often, according to a survey by The Washington Post and Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. In New York City, subway ridership continues to be about 50 percent below pre-pandemic rates, according to Metropolitan Transit Authority data.
“Employees returning to the office should use their commute as guilt-free time to do something they truly enjoy,” Halpern says. Start asking friends and family about their favorite podcasts or audiobooks to give yourself something to look forward to on your commute, Tardy says. “If I’m listening to something interesting, my mind isn’t set on the traffic, it’s set on what I’m taking in, and that keeps me calm,” she says. If you have a library card, you can download thousands of audiobooks for free.
Many employers are staggering schedules, so your favorite coworkers might not be in the office when you’re scheduled to be there. However, if the annoying colleague on the other side of the cubicle wall works the same schedule as you, consider asking your boss if you can move to another cube or a different schedule. “Covid is not over, so it’s socially acceptable to say you want to socially distance yourself from your coworkers,” says psychologist Susan Albers of the Cleveland Clinic.
Grabbing a quick lunch or even a cup of coffee while at work might be challenging, though. The National Restaurant Association found that 90,000 restaurants—approximately 14 percent of all eateries across the US—have closed permanently or long-term. Many businesses located near office buildings—shoe repair shops and dry cleaners, for example have also closed, making it more difficult for workers to squeeze in an errand at lunchtime, Halpern says.
Getting to the grocery store will take planning now that you can’t just run out mid-morning to pick up a few things. “Get intentional about your schedule, and see which errands you can make part of your weekly routine,” suggests Mimi Bishop, cofounder of the Resting Mind, career coaching for Gen X women. For instance, if you work from home twice a week, schedule a shopping trip on a work-from-home day.
Resist the urge to compare what it was like working in your office pre-Covid with working from home during the pandemic, or even what it’s like being back in the office now, Albers says. “Focus on the here and now, and find the silver lining,” she says. For instance, focus on the benefits of nonverbal communication you get from in-person interactions, or even the free snacks in the office or your favorite coffee shop that makes the trip a little brighter. Or, instead of thinking that you’re losing the chance to work from home every day, reframe your mindset to “I get to work from home three times a week,” which you may not have been able to do pre-pandemic. “Don’t look back,” Albers says. “Just look forward.”
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