Totally agree, once you stop fighting your setup the welds just flow.

My grandma caught me doing this about 3 years ago with pancakes, not muffins, but same idea. She watched me stir the batter forever and said I was beating all the air right out of it. I always thought smooth batter meant light and fluffy pancakes, so I kept doing it for years. Turns out those little lumps are what make them rise right, and once I started mixing just until it came together they got so much better. So yeah, I was wrong about that one.

Time is the one thing you can never get back or buy more of later. Three hours a day on a train adds up to about 45 full days a year that you just hand over for a slightly bigger place. The roommate noise is annoying for sure, but a good pair of earplugs costs way less than losing that much of your life.