Working Across Time Zones—Turning a Challenge to Your Advantage

How being 12 to 15 hours behind my team actually helped me increase my productivity

Checklist below!

Leading the way in work from anywhere means having colleagues in Asia, Australia, Africa, and the Americas. As far as time zones go, I consider myself rather spoiled to be based in Europe: I sit in the middle and can do most of my work within usual office hours.

Recently, though, I spent a few weeks in the US—what I consider our toughest time zone at Yodo1 because it’s where we have the fewest team members and work hours that are practically opposite of Asia, where a majority of our 120+ staff are based.

I was prepared for work to be a challenge during this extended trip, and in some ways, it was: I had significantly less or in some cases no face time with team members. And there were some unavoidable delays; if a question was sent by a peer in Asia in the middle of their day, for example, and I had already signed off for the night, they’d likely not see my reply until the start of their next day—which would be the end of mine.

At the same time, it forced me to up my asynchronous work—or async—game and discover ways being 12 to 15 hours behind my team actually helped me increase my productivity.?

In this article, I’d like to share with you three hidden benefits and a checklist for successfully working from anywhere and across time zones.

Benefit #1: Deeper focus, more real work done

I underestimated how impactful it would be to have long, quiet hours in the middle of my work day. Free from the usual business of meetings and chat communication, I didn’t have to worry about turning off distractions to get into focus mode.

Instead, I found myself effortlessly falling into distraction-free, deep-focus work. And I got more real work done—including some projects I’d been putting off indefinitely in my usual schedule because of the different directions the work day would pull me in.?

And because I was traveling and visiting friends and family, I also had the freedom to occasionally spend the day with them and handle work earlier in the morning or later in the evening. In other words, the same benefit of distraction-free deep focus can apply to your personal life, and help you find more of that coveted work-life balance.

Benefit #2: Less time spent in meetings without communication loss

Luckily we have a strong habit of recording all our meetings at Yodo1, so not being able to attend them live doesn’t mean missing out on anything. Plus, I could watch the recording at 1.2 to 1.5x speed and skim the transcript to jump to key sections—all at my own convenience and often taking half the time.

Then, having processed the topics covered in the meeting, I could take time to organize my thoughts, type them up into a clear and concise message, and put them in the group chat.

Besides that, it turned out that some meetings didn’t have to happen live at all. In my team, we replaced our weekly meeting with Looms: On Monday, we each recorded and watched each others’ short video updates, then gave feedback and discussed action items in the chat.

And yes, some meetings had to happen early in the morning, or later in the evening. But I used part of my deep focus time to make sure I and other attendees were well prepared, with all the homework done in advance, so every minute of live meeting time could be optimally spent—and thus shorter.

Benefit #3: What necessity is to invention, time restriction is to efficiency

I have consistently found that having less time in a given week doesn’t have to mean getting less done. In fact, the opposite can be true. When I know I’ll be out for a day or two, or even a half day, I plan more carefully and push myself to make the best use of my work time.?

The same can be true while traveling and taking advantage of work from anywhere. Because I know I’ll lose work hours due to air travel and some long weekends with family and friends, I make a deliberate effort to carefully organize my calendar, lay out my priorities, and communicate intentionally. Simply put, it makes me more efficient.

I knew working across extreme time differences was doable, but it didn't really click until I had to do it myself. And now, rather than see it as a challenge to warn people about, I view it as a valuable opportunity. That said, you have to put in the effort to make it work to your advantage.?

So, let's recap the essentials:

Your Work From Anywhere Checklist?

1. Define what a healthy work-life balance looks like for you. Decide which tradeoffs you are and aren’t willing to make to work from anywhere, and which boundaries you will set for yourself.
2. Be overly clear on your availability and boundaries. Use the status message and/or auto-reply functions in your communications app, and let key stakeholders know directly when they can expect you to be available, and when you’ll be offline. Make it a point to speak openly about your boundaries.
3. Work in the sunshine. Sunshine, or keeping what you’re working on out in the light, is one of our mantras at Yodo1. One of my favorite ways to do this is by posting what we call MFTs (My Focus Today) in a dedicated channel. It creates a continuous loop of awareness and accountability, increases a team’s ability to understand and support each other, and keeps everyone focused on their wildly important goals together.
4. Be rigorous in your communication. Make your messages, updates, and questions SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. A lot of time is lost going back and forth over unclear communication. Taking those extra minutes to think your communication through and getting it right the first time can save hours.
5. Replace live meetings with async where possible. With one strong collaborative documentation tool (we use Notion), one strong video tool (we use Loom), and a team commitment to using them effectively, you can probably replace or shorten most of your meetings.
6. Make meetings count. Async is great, but there are times when a live call is better, or even just more enjoyable. When you do have meetings, take as much time (or more) to prepare and follow up as you spend on the call. If it’s not worth preparing for, it’s not worth the meeting. And without effective follow-up, the time booked on everyone’s calendar is simply wasted.
7. Don’t forget to have fun. Last but not least, forget about productivity sometimes. Use some live meeting space to get to know each other better, and don’t be afraid to reach out for a virtual coffee or get-to-know-you call. Human connection is key to enjoyment and creativity at work and, while it doesn’t come as naturally in a fully remote environment, making the effort goes a long way.?

Working from anywhere–especially across multiple time zones–can be challenging, but it’s also pretty amazing to have all this freedom.

With the right approach, potential roadblocks can become stepping stones to greater productivity.?Which is exactly why it's important to share our insights as we figure out a new way to work efficiently with more flexibility.

What helps you work across time zones?