Say farewell to the rush hour how you can quit long treks to work by working via the World Wide Web

Throughout my career I have had the personal ideal aim to greatly decrease the journey I have to take to work. The degree to which I have succeeded has varied enormously, from tremendously long and time-consuming commutes, to the ability to work from home, finally removing the need to commute altogether.

I look back on my first job after graduating. I lived in a room only five minutes’ walk from my workplace. It would have been just what I wanted, except for a quite unhinged landlady and some very unsavoury tenants in the same apartment block! My subsequent job was in very sharp contrast. I had to take my car for over an hour down one of the country’s most clogged-up sections of motorway. I struggled to get up to average speeds of 20 mph, especially in the morning. Even starting out at 6am did not ensure a congestion-free journey. Unfortunately, at the time in question, the idea of Internet business was as yet in its infancy, because no more than a handful of people knew about the Internet.

After five years of that, I decided I’d had enough. And yet, my next commute was not a particular improvement. For nearly a decade I commuted into London via train, swapping one form of congestion for another. For all that time I put up with overcrowded railcars, in conditions that might well cause a national enquiry if you conveyed animals a similar way. And yet it was only when I was made redundant, that I resolved to re-think matters. After countless fruitless weeks looking for jobs the online jobs boards, I came across the opportunity to work from home, be self-employed and dispense with travelling to work altogether.

Of course, the critical element has been the growth of Internet business. The Web makes it practically irrelevant where you work from; there is no need to be sitting in an office when you can discuss things with people by video conference or email. This has greatly augmented the opportunities for people to work from home. No long waits at the station, no standing in carriages, no frustrated queuing in traffic snarl-ups. And maybe more than all this, no clockwatching. I can choose my own hours, start work at the crack of dawn if I want to, or elect to work less conventional hours. The only significant factor is whether I can complete my work tasks.

As we all become progressively more concerned about the wider consequences of transport, not least the ‘carbon footprint’ of road vehicles and aeroplanes, Internet business can also give us the ability to diminish the emissions created by huge volumes of travel in the morning and evening.

Yet also worth considering, as a corollary of working in online jobs, is the saving in money. We are all aware of how the cost of petrol has shot through the roof over the past few months. The impending rise in VAT of an extra 2.5% will make things worse. And if you choose to travel by public transport, the impact on your wallet is perhaps even more onerous. When I commuted to London, I spent well over £3,000 on season tickets.

Any salary you are offered is subject to tax and such like. Tax is a deduction everyone has to pay. But the large sums of money we spend on taking the car or train to the office, are in effect another type of tax, that you are not obliged to pay any longer. online jobs allow workers to retain a much bigger proportion of their salary. That three thousand I used to spend on rail fares, will help to pay for a nice sea cruise – a somewhat more desirable mode of travel, I think!