RJ stepped up. He volunteered to write the Amiga OS from scratch, entirely by himself. Of course, he had one major stipulation: no one was to bother him for the next 18 months. No meetings, no phone calls, no "Hey RJ, wanna go get lunch?" For the first 12 of those 18 months, RJ wrote the code in the office. But then, it was decided that the 30 minutes he was driving from home to the office and back again each day was too detrimental to his progress. RJ moved into a hotel near the office with just his clothes and a computer.
I have a daily commute time of 1h each direction but I travel by train. I've been doing this for 2 years now and intent to keep it this way because I find it a lot easier to focus on reading than when I am at home. When I don't feel like reading I listen to podcasts or reflect my work.
Fair enough. My point is being more mindful and deliberate about things, and not taking the default of "I have to come into work." You don't have to. I'm certainly not suggesting that you have to work remotely, either.
A 1 hour commute one-way is about 20 hours a week. That's a part-time job for some people. Commuting is simply not that interesting of an activity.