Various comments: Those talking of 11 speed or more seem to be missing the point that the OP is riding a 7-speed. There are very good reasons to stick with 7-speed for a commuter. Cheap, reliable, simple. Narrower hubs (not all frames take kindly to 130 dropout widths). Non-index shifting is easy to do with the wider cog spacing and again, cheap, reliable and simple.
I cannot suggest a best half-step gearing for the OP as I have never had nor been tempted to ride half-step. But if I did and I was riding a route I knew well and did a lot, I'd figure out the gears I wanted for that ride and come up with gearing that simplified shifts and gave the best ratios for the route.
My riding style, since my 2nd good bike most of 50 years ago, has been on 52-42 up front (and a 28 inner ring except my racing bike) and a tight freewheel/cassette in back. I've gotten older but all that has done is reduce the front to 50-38-24. Same concept, same shifts, just for slower speeds. Now, this does often "force" me to do cassette-wide shifts but since I use friction shifting I left "force" in quotations because those shifts are far from a hardship. (Another reason I've been slow to get on board with index shifting.)
Speaking of cheap, reliable and simple, OP, have you considered doing to a 110-74 BCD crankset? There are a lot of used Suginos out there with lots of life left in them. That would open the door to a triple, give you more gearing options and keep your jumps down since you could use a tighter FW/cassette. (42 x 32 is the same as a 28 x 21 or 22. A 12 or 13-21 7-speed is fun! All the shifts are sweet, even grinding the toughest hill. (My Money spent a couple of decades on a 50-38-23 x 12-21 7-speed.)
Ben