The year 2020 (amidst the backdrop of the global Covid-19 pandemic) has dramatically altered the paradigm of how people live and work. With more people working from home, many have realized the benefits of not having a long commute into the office. It’s affected the real estate market with urban professionals ditching their downtown condos and fleeing to the suburbs in droves. This is something they would never have entertained before the pandemic, due to the thought of long commutes, traffic, the cost of fuel, boredom. You get the idea.

Yet it hasn’t had any such effect on me. Why? Well, for the past 16 years I’ve been practicing what I call Geo Minimalism.

Geo Minimalism – (noun): Engineering your life within as small a geographic radius as possible.

It all started in 2004 when I was looking to purchase a home after getting married and renting a condo for 3 years. My wife doesn’t drive, so it was important that I find a place with easy access to Toronto public transit. Living in a distant suburb with a long commute wasn’t an option. Toronto real estate was (and even more so now) quite expensive.

After doing some research, I figured out that if we chose a place just outside the city’s official border, I could find a more affordable house while having other benefits (newer homes, better schools and city services, etc). It was literally a 2-minute walk to the nearest Toronto transit bus stop and one bus away from two subway lines.

But here was the kicker. It was only a 7-minute drive to my office. I remember the first time I drove into work after we moved in. It was complete bliss. I could go home for lunch if I wanted to. Pick up groceries on the way home while still having ample time to cook dinner. As the years passed and we had a child, it occurred to me that my entire life was centered within a 3km radius (just under 2 miles). Work, my son’s school and extracurricular activities, stores, doctors’ and dentists’ offices. Literally, everything was close by.

I later gave this type of lifestyle design the name Geo Minimalism. I’ve Googled this several times, and I’m pretty certain that it has never been used, and I don’t see any content on the web about this subject, which surprised the hell out of me.

Oddly, I have never considered myself to be a minimalist in the traditional sense of the term. I do have my share of possessions, many of which I no longer need. I could benefit from doing a full out “Marie Kondo” and selling or throwing out items that I no longer use or need.

Geo Minimalism IS

• Engineering your life within as small of a geographic radius as possible, thereby:
• Minimizing the amount of time spent commuting or in traffic (defined as waste), so that:
• You can use that time for other things that provide value or benefit. Hopefully, things that compound into other positive outcomes.

I use the term waste above from within the context of Lean Manufacturing or Lean Thinking developed by the founder of Toyota, who revolutionized the world of manufacturing and quality with what was then called the “Toyota Production System”. This system has now been adopted by companies and other industries worldwide and has extended from being limited to the manufacturing floor. It’s now used in offices, hospital and healthcare settings, government services offices, and airports, to name a few.

Muda – is a Japanese word meaning “futility; uselessness; wastefulness”, and is a key concept in lean process thinking, like the Toyota Production System (TPS)

Oddly enough, it’s very similar to the Italian word “Merda” which literally means shit or crap.

I guess Italians are more direct and to the point than the Japanese ?. In Lean Thinking, there are 7 types of Muda commonly found in a production or office setting.

The 7 Types of Muda

Image by Alhmodeus

Of those 7 types of Muda, Geo Minimalism helps with 3 (Transport, Motion, and Waiting).

The image below is taken from the Blue Zones website. Several books have been written using the Blue Zones brand, and its core message revolves around researching the healthiest, longest-lived people on earth (those that lived in these so-called blue zones). The image is titled the “Life Radius” and describes the four areas close to home where we spend 90% of our lives (90% if we are living in a community designed around the blue zone methodology). If a long commute reduces that 90% to 70-80% then there’s less time left over to spend in parks, trails, town centers, or buying fresh groceries and preparing our own meals. The people that lived in those blue zones practiced Geo Minimalism without even having to create a name for it.

Image from https://www.bluezones.com/live-longer-better/life-radius/

Geo Minimalism IS NOT

• Shaming people who have a long commute.
• Stating that a longer commute is always wasteful.

If someone derives value from living further from where they work that exceeds the negative aspects of the time and cost spent commuting, that is a choice that can still make sense. An example could be living in a safer neighbourhood with better schools for their children or the beauty of living in the country with ample room for dogs, chicken coups, horses, or snowmobiles. Another exception is that if a person’s office is in the downtown core, they may have no choice but to take the transit system into work. Downtown living isn’t for everyone, and the feasibility can vary depending on the city.

Cost Savings of Having a Short Commute

• Gas (I spend about $20 per week for a car that costs $40 to fill).
• Less wear and tear on your vehicle, thereby increasing its lifespan.
• Less frequent car maintenance (ie. oil changes, tires, brakes, and other preventative maintenance that is based on mileage).
• Less costly insurance.

We can compound these savings by investing or diverting that money towards something that brings joy to your life (ie. travel or a hobby). There is a caveat here in that if a person’s commute fully consists of public transit, then the above points about financial benefit may not apply since public transit costs are not always based on distance travelled.

Less Environmental Impact

Geo Minimalism also has the benefit of having a lower environmental impact. Reducing carbon footprint is one of the top headlines in the media at the time of this writing (at least in Canadian media).

According to this Gallup article :

• “Remote work influences the environment, which should be an aspect of any environmentally-focused corporate social responsibility program and may fit environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria.
• “The easiest way to measure a company’s carbon footprint, however, is by the mile — and every mile a worker doesn’t drive improves the company’s environmental impact. For instance, Sun Microsystems’ Open Work Program, which permitted 24,000 U.S. employees to work from home, prevented the release of 32,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the environment that year. In 2015, Xerox reported that its remote workers drove 92 million fewer miles, which reduced carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 41,000 metric tons. Corporate leaders can deduce the environmental impact of their in-house workers’ commute with Gallup’s data: In 2019, Gallup reported that the most common length of commute is less than 30 minutes, with the majority taking less than an hour. These figures seem to be holding steady over the past 10 years that Gallup has tracked it.”

Working From Home After Covid

While the current work from home craze has allowed people to move out of urban city centers and into the suburbs, that may not last forever. While some companies in specific industries will go to a hybrid style with some remote working, there are many companies that will want their employees to return to traditional office hours most of the time.

According to this (paywalled) article, a study by recruitment agency Robert Half Canada found that 48 percent of Canadian employers do not intend to continue their flexible working policies once the pandemic is over. If this happens, all those workers who fled to distant suburbs are going to feel the pain when they have to commute (if they can’t find work closer to home). Many will have to sell their homes and relocate.

Thanks to Geo Minimalism, I’m not one of them.