How I manage my time working remote
Hey,
I'm Sergio Pereira, and this is the Remote Work newsletter 👋
Last week, I wrote about the reasons why some remote companies hire US-only applicants, which frustrates remote job seekers around the world.
This week has been intense, with the launch of the Auto Apply functionality at JobsCopilot.ai. It's a private launch for now, I'm gathering feedback and will open to you all soon. Doing quick calls with customers for early reactions is just great. Hurts to hear people trash my product, but it's great to know that I'll make it much better with this feedback.
But there was way more than that this week. It's 3am while I'm writing this newsletter, I've just wrapped an all hands meeting with a California-based client. And just before that I sent out the contract for a new client I'm starting in October. One from 3 new leads who reached out to me last week. All of these 3 Startup Founders got me recommended by contacts who read my online content. I don't know them, but I'm grateful anyway.
Earlier this week, at the Remote Jobs Braintrust, we had a fireside session with Fernando, a Software Developer from Brazil who landed a remote job at a US company. We had people from LATAM, Europe and Asia in the call, and we found ourselves discussing timezone differences. There was even Subho, a Software Developer from India who moved to Argentina, just to mitigate the time zone factor.
While much of the media dunks on remote workers as lazy people who work few hours per day. I think it is much more prevalent for the opposite case to happen. Remote workers can easily be always on, and find themselves working way longer than they ever would in an office.
This has happened to me multiple times. And still today I find myself accepting work that stretches my days and nights more frequently than I should.
I haven't worked a 9-5 schedule for about 10 years. Ever since I worked remote, I've mainly worked from Portugal to the US, which means that my evenings and nights started having meeting invites here and there. I started working less in the morning, and putting a "slot" in the evening.
But I'm a morning person, I'm very productive in the early hours. So I started using the mornings for deep work, before the US wakes up. That's when I started my 3 part day:
• 1-3 hours in the morning
• Long lunch break, sports, walk the dogs, etc
• 3-4 hours in the afternoon
• Stop early to pick up kids from school, activities, etc
• Another 1-3 hours in the evening
If you do the math, yeah. Sometimes this is like 4-5 hours of work per day. Other times it's 10.
I deeply respect the folks in India, Pakistan, Philippines, etc who work through the night, so they have sync hours with the US. I've worked with many who do so, and it's a big trade off to let go of most social life for a good part of one's career, just to enjoy higher US salaries.
Working remote is great. But it comes with obvious trade offs. So is working a Fractional career, it's great but also has trade offs.
As someone said on Twitter a while ago:
• "Remote work gives you the flexibility to work where you want and when you want. But if you're bad at setting boundaries, you'll find yourself spending 12+ hours per day working in your home office."
Thanks for reading this newsletter until the end. You can read all past editions here. Make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues so they can read it too.
If you're interested in sponsoring this newsletter, send me an email or DM.
See you next Friday,
Sergio Pereira,
Startup CTO & Remote Work Lover
