Depends on the commute - I bought a small laptop so I could work on my side project while on the train. I've found that I can get a lot done in the 10 20-minute legs of my weekly commute. I'm sure it is less efficient than taking the 200 minutes in a solid stretch - but it was easy to fit into my life so I kept with the habit (which is the hard part for me).

(At least until I stumbled on a good book - totally off the wagon now)

I've been doing this 40 minutes total a day for almost a year. I've probably doubled my knowledge of programming in that time. Something about the short time and nothing else to do gets me to focus like crazy.

Not always the case if you can ride public transit. I've gotten a couple coding projects done on the bus.

Couldn't agree more. That's been one of the biggest changes in my life since I switched to remote work. Now, I can commute by bike (10-15 minutes at the most).

I talked about it here: http://justinjackson.ca/remote/

Not necessarily. For me, commute time (about an hour a day, on a bike) is down-time, during which I can think about and strategize on projects. Traditionally, it's also a time when insights and inspirations strike, though obviously that may not be the case for everybody.

I also find that having a little psychic space between work and home helps me better regulate intrusions between them.

Or if you do, take the bus or train! I still commute once a week to the city and that 40-60 minutes is priceless.

Sometimes commutes are unavoidable, but I've found that podcasts and audiobooks make this time feel less wasted and helps regain the time taken away from personal entertainment time when working on side-projects.

If it's a good book or episode I sometimes look forward to the time to myself in my car.

For me, my 30 minute commute is time to wind down for a bit. I couldn't tolerate a longer commute than that though.