Working schedule

Last night I sat down and figured out how I was going to work while out in Croatia for the next month. My job requires me to speak to U.S. based clients, so being 9 hours ahead isn’t the easiest time zone shift. I am fortunate that we have a large number of our team out in Amsterdam so being in the same time zone as them for once adds a nice benefit.

I thought about a few different arrangements. The most tempting was just working the late afternoons through late in the night, and then sleeping later into the morning. The 3pm to 1am schedule sounds good in theory, but I think it would ultimately be too difficult for me to manage long term. I’d likely end up working mornings too and my days would just get too long.

I decided to go with a sort of a split schedule for now. We’ll see how long this lasts, but I thought it was the most balanced.

9am - 1pm local - Take calls with Amsterdam office, if needed. But using this time to catch-up on previous days emails and have some quiet work time to get stuff done.

1pm - 5pm local - Visit hospital and help our my wife and mother in-law with anything they need. Maybe sneak in a quick workout if there’s time.

5pm - 10pm local (8am - 1pm PST) - Normal PST work hours and calls with team/clients

Setting the schedule is the easy part, but sticking to the schedule will be the difficult part. Anyone that’s worked in a startup knows that work never ends, so I’ll need to be flexible. At same time, it’s about setting the right boundaries so I’m not outdoing things.