At 2am today, time jumped forward an hour into the future. I woke this Sunday at 6:47 and felt pretty tired. No wonder — yesterday it would have been just before six. Now we’re in daylight saving. Outside it’s already summer-warm, smells like Australia: salty, sweet and spicy.
Soon, when Europe slips into winter time, it’ll be ten hours difference. The window for Zoom calls and Teams meetings gets smaller and smaller. Now it’s already 6pm here when people in Germany sit down at their desks at 9am.
I’m always dealing with tired people (and am tired myself). Mornings, German time, my counterparts are still groggy from the night, need to boot up their systems. I’m tired because I’ve already been at it all day.
That’s why I’m trying to reduce video meetings with Germany as much as possible. This also means I want to work more asynchronously with German clients. My location advantage is that I can work productively here while Germany sleeps.
I can think, write and get things done in peace here. But if I have to coordinate with Germany via Zoom every evening, that’s not the right task — my family suffers. Which means I can’t and won’t take everything that comes along, however tempting it sounds.
Not easy, but that’s how it has to be. Another step towards Australia.
Originally auf Deutsch at reinergaertner.de, running since 1997. The translation had AI help. The typos are all mine.