Your whole commute is either lost time or free time. The only difference is where your head goes.

The same forty minutes can be a tax or a gift and nothing about the journey decides which. Spend it irritated at the traffic and it is subtracted from your day. Spend it on something that is yours and it becomes the only stretch where nobody can ask you for anything. The bus does not care either way.

Give the trip a job this week. Music you actually chose, a book, a language, a phone call to someone you never call, or simply the window with nothing running. Decide before you get on, because undecided time reliably turns into scrolling.