I like to ride my bike into the office. We live about ten blocks from the east side of the river, with downtown on the other side. Most of my morning trip is downhill. I almost never have to peddle.
The ride back is much harder. Naturally, it’s uphill most of the way. Recently, coasting down in the morning, I realized that I would much rather have the easy ride on the way home. Even though it would mean some tough peddling at an early hour, I’d be leaving myself a reward for the afternoon.
I have no plans to swap my home and office yet, but this then got me thinking about projects. Like my ride to work, we don’t really have much of a choice of where the hard work comes, but what if we did? I would still take the hard stuff first. Consider this graph:
The blue represents my current roundtrip ride (where the easy stuff is in the first half, the morning). The orange is the reverse ride I wish I could have.
Perhaps it’s about delayed gratification, in which case I guess that means I have a successful mindset.
In terms of projects, I think it’s more about tempo. Getting through the tough stuff and “coasting” through the end would be lovely. Try as we might, the tough stuff is probably meant to be at the end. That’s where the details are.
If you had a choice, would you want the blue project or the orange project? Where do you want your hill?
I’ve got an almost identical commute to you and I often wish it was reversed. Sure, I’d be a bit sweaty when I got into work but looking forward to the quick ride home all day would be worth it.
I actually disagree. While I’ve had commutes of all kinds, I’ve found that I hate getting to work sweaty, but look forward to getting on my bike at the end of a long day in a chair, and feeling my body work in the evening. And when I get home, completely sweaty, I just hop in the shower and put on comfortable clothes. Unless there’s a shower at the office, an uphill ride into work leaves me sweating and being uncomfortable for hours, which sucks!
FWIW, I have a relatively flat commute with only an evening headwind to contend with. I find that in the evening, my muscles can work a lot harder, maybe because my legs more limber than they are early in the day. Maybe because I’m especially motivated to get home.
Try sleeping in your office on a Friday night. See how it feels!
BTW…typo in: “Conider this graph”