Great idea. This also sounds a lot like it falls in with the "ritual" concept from Deep Work by Cal Newport.

This is a great idea and I used to do it for a while when I tried working from home. The problem for me is that I usually give on this ritual after a week or two. How long have you been able to sustain it for?

I don’t actually do it. :) my problem is that I work too much when I work from home. I can’t pull myself away. My solution was to have children who draw me away with their siren song of, “lets play legos daddy!”

I should have clarified that it was something I learned from someone else who actually does do it. But yes it is definitely second hand.

An hour away seems like a waste of 2 hours of your day to a commute.

Depends how you view it. My commute is almost an hour, half on a train and half by bike. In the morning, the train comes first, and I'm basically still waking up. That's wasted time anyway - even if I were at leisure, all I'd be doing at that point is sitting with a cup of tea, booting up my brain. Occasionally I'll see a fellow commuter I know, and we can spend the time chatting and waking up together. Then the bike ride - mostly along relaxing bike paths and trails - is a great way to finish waking up and settle my mind for work, as well as a core part of my daily exercise. Again, activity I'd need to do at some point anyway.

In the evening, the bike ride is much faster as it's more downhill, and because I'm fully awake the train ride is a chance to read, listen to music, or program for fun.

Point is, with this style of commute, the time mostly isn't "wasted" because it consists largely of activities I'd like to do at some point in the day anyway. I don't know how people cope with an hour in traffic behind a steering wheel.

Could be spent productively, e.g reading, meditating or working on a laptop. That's assuming you take public transportation to work, but audiobooks and podcasts could substitute if you drive/walk/bike

I can only imagine how unfathomably ridiculous this would look like to an onlooker