While I’m not trying to work a normal schedule during this trip, I am keeping up on various commitments to divergent media, consulting clients, and the courses I’m involved with. It has reminded me of just how pleasant it is to work from a European timezone. Let me explain.
Wake up. It’s around midnight in the midwest. Catch up on email, send things off, head out for the day. You can be almost completely confident that for the next 8 or 9 hours, you won’t receive any significant amount of actionable email.
Swing back through the hotel around 3 or 4. If you’ve stupidly decided to visit Italy in July, you’ll probably want a shower at this point. By the time you’re done, you’ll likely have the first wave of email coming back, and can address any priority issues.
Head back out for dinner. Come home around 11 or so, do one more sweep of email. It’s now coming up on 5pm in the midwest. You can hit any important items before the close of business, then go to bed relatively confident that things won’t pile up.
So basically, the bulk of your day is free from any stress (or hint of stress) that you’re missing out on important contacts – back home, you’d be sleeping through them anyways. And, your customers or clients are never waiting an unreasonably long time to hear back from you.
Really, it’s just about perfect.