The exact commute calculation
Enter one-way minutes and office days separately. The calculator counts both directions:
annual commute = weekly commute × 52
Weekly commute is added to work hours inside Free Time. It is not subtracted from Money. Fuel, fares, parking, vehicle wear, and taxes may matter personally, but Model V2 does not score them.
Five commute patterns, made visible
The table shows the burden of each pattern by itself. “Time score vs zero” assumes both jobs otherwise have identical hours and PTO, with the current job at zero commute and the listed pattern assigned to the new job.
| One way | Office days | Weekly hours | Annual hours | 8-hour days | Time score vs zero |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 min | 5 | 2.5 | 130 | 16.25 | −0.25 |
| 30 min | 5 | 5.0 | 260 | 32.5 | −0.50 |
| 45 min | 5 | 7.5 | 390 | 48.75 | −0.75 |
| 45 min | 2 | 3.0 | 156 | 19.5 | −0.30 |
| 0 min | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
Frequency matters as much as distance. The same 45-minute route falls from 390 to 156 annual hours when office attendance falls from five days to two. The Work Setup label does not create this difference; the explicit commute and office-day inputs do.
Commute and PTO share one category
Free Time combines work hours, commute, and PTO without converting any of them to money. Consider jobs with equal 40-hour workweeks. The current job has no commute and 15 PTO days. The new job has a 45-minute one-way commute, five office days, and 35 PTO days.
Extra PTO = 20 × 8 = 160 hours/year
Net additional time burden = 390 − 160 = 230 hours/year
Weekly time delta = −230 ÷ 52 = −4.423 hours
Time score = −4.423 ÷ 10 = −0.442
The additional PTO offsets part—but not all—of the commute. This shared accounting prevents the model from describing both as unrelated “wins” or “losses.” It also makes the assumption inspectable: every PTO day is fixed at eight hours, which may not match every schedule.
A recommendation-band sensitivity example
Use equal priorities and hold Money, Quality, Growth, and Benefits equal. Set the current job to a zero-minute commute and the new job to 45 minutes, five office days. The only category difference is Time −0.75, contributing −0.150 to the final score. The result is “Leans toward staying.”
The sensitivity engine changes one variable at a time and displays its highest-ranked representative from the Time family. For this case it reports new-job work hours moving from 40 to about 37 per week, which changes the final score from −0.150 to −0.090 and reaches “Close call.” This does not assert that the job really offers a shorter schedule; it identifies the one-variable boundary.
Commute alternatives can still be checked directly. Reducing the one-way trip from 45 to 25 minutes moves the final to −0.083 and reaches “Close call”; 30 minutes lands exactly at −0.100 and remains “Leans toward staying.” Reducing office days by one, from five to four, improves the final to −0.120 but does not cross a boundary. A useful improvement and a label change are not the same thing.
How to use this in a real comparison
Use the commute you realistically expect, including required attendance—not the policy's most flexible interpretation. If the route varies, run a normal week and a bad-week estimate. Then inspect the result alongside stress and happiness, since an unpleasant commute may affect those estimates without the model assuming it automatically.
Keep costs separate. You can maintain a personal transport budget beside the calculator, but adding an hourly wage conversion to Money would double count a burden already represented in Free Time.
Enter your actual route and schedule
Compare weekly work, commute, and PTO in the calculator, then inspect the Time contribution and sensitivity result.
Calculate the Time Trade-offSee the complete Free Time formula on How It Works, or explore why the Work Setup label itself remains neutral.