9-5 Is Out. Try The 1-6 Instead.
When are you most productive? In the morning? Afternoon? Late at night?
I was raised to covet the early morning hours. I’ve spent my whole life thinking I was more “accomplished” the earlier I woke up. I got this idea directly from my parents by living in a home where everyone was “up and at ‘em” by 6 am, sometimes earlier. Getting up at 8 am was sleeping in and made you lazy. Growing up, productivity only counted if it happened on the early side of the day.
Fast forward to June 2017 when Steve and I booked a two-month trip to Europe—with no concrete plans—to see how little we could work while still keeping our business going. We barely let people know we were gone, we booked Brandshrinks based on EST (even though we were six hours ahead), and we pushed ourselves to see if we could enjoy our trip and keep the lights on back home.
Each day, we woke up when we wanted, had a leisurely breakfast, spent four or five hours at a beach, did some reading, then had a relaxing lunch before heading back to our hotel room—usually between 4pm and 6pm—to start working for the day (the advantage of being at least 6 hours ahead of the United States). After a few hours of work, we’d head for dinner. (It didn’t hurt that it’s still light out at 10 pm during the summer in Spain and Italy)
It was all very seamless. And surprisingly, after having spent a whole day relaxing and doing whatever we wanted, it became easier to sit down and work in the late afternoons. Despite appearances, we actually got a lot done. More, in fact, than usual. It really drove the point home for us that we fill the time we have (It is called Parkinson’s Law if you want to read more about it).
We called this realization “#SpainBrain.” Before returning home, we decided #SpainBrain is here for life.
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