Check out the video!
Check out these proven, 5 easy tips to help you deal with the challenges of working in different timezones.
- Chunk Meetings
- Try your hardest to chunk your meetings into a specific time of day and certain days of the week. That way if you’re in a very different timezone than you don’t have to wake up at all different hours of the night for meetings.
- You can also chunk your meetings at the beginning, or end of the month so you can relax and enjoy more of your vacation for half of the month.
- Check Email 1x A Day
- This one can be tough if you haven’t started off your relationships this way, but it’s huge for keeping people from freaking out when you’re on a different schedule (and it’s good for your mental health in general haha).
- Don’t Fight The Jetlag
- At least right away, you’re already on the schedule of your co-workers maybe for the first few days or a week or so stay on that same schedule. It will give you one less thing to worry about while you’re acclimating to your new surroundings.
- Google Calendar Timezones Feature
- This thing is a lifesaver, even when I’m in the US! It allows you to see multiple timezones at once in your Google Calendar view. Here are directions on how to use it.
- Try To Travel North & South
- This is the most obvious one, but if possible try to travel north to south and not east to west. As an American, you can see a lot of different cultures and landscapes without changing too many timezones by going to Central or South America.
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Transcripts Of The Video
hey guys coming in
00:02
lauren from digital nomad lifestyle and
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i’m coming in today with one two three
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four five tips for working and
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scheduling work while working in
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different time zones number one is going
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to be chunk meetings so there’s two ways
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that you can chunk meetings
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one being is chunking your meetings by
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the time of day for example picking one
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time of day from like two to five pm or
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one four pm or nine to 11 am and making
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sure you only schedule meetings at those
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times on specific days
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that way when you travel remote you
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don’t have to wake up at one o’clock in
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the morning at four o’clock in the
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morning and six o’clock in the morning
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you kind of can wake up one time
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and then knock out all your meetings
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back to back to back
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for me what i do is i chunk my time
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tuesday wednesday thursday i don’t have
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regular meetings outside of those times
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that way when i’m remote i know monday
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friday i can be a little more flexible
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with my schedule and then also
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if i go to china or when i was in turkey
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i only had to get up once and then i
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could knock out two or three meetings
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and i wouldn’t have to wake up three or
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four times in the middle of the night
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the second way of chunking your meetings
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is
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either front loading or back loading the
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month with meetings so what i mean by
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that is either maybe you set the first
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and second week of the month for regular
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meetings and you keep the third and
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fourth week pretty free or vice versa
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you can make the third and fourth week a
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little bit more
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free and then keep the first and second
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week open so i recognize not everybody
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can
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you know decides when they have meetings
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and stuff like that but if you could try
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to work with your colleagues and keep
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and try to like keep meetings in those
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time zones or maybe just look at where
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your meetings are already kind of
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scheduled and make sure and try to fit
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meetings into those some those same time
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frames that’s that would help that helps
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out a lot i know that helped me a lot
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especially in china china was crazy it’s
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like a 12 hour time difference and so it
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would have been a nightmare if i had had
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meetings all over all around the day it
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would have been crazy
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so number two is checking email once a
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day so get used to clients and employees
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get used to answering
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their emails and their messages one time
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a day that way they’re not expecting you
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to reply in an hour or two or three or
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four
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there’s another one that can be a little
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tough you kind of have to set it as a
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boundary right off the bat with a lot of
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your employees and um
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and and or clients because uh generally
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they’re not yeah they’re probably not
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gonna like that too much
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but trust me it’ll help up quite a bit
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and if you just get them used to it then
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you’ll find that they’ll they’ll figure
02:36
out solutions themselves and or they’ll
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give you more information in the
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messages and emails because they know
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you’re not going to sit there for three
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or four hours and message back and forth
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them every single day
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so number three is going to be jet lag
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let what i use what i mean by that is
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use jet lag to your advantage
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so if your time
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your time frame is already kind of set
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to america and you’ve traveled to uh i’m
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going to say iran you know because i
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really want to go to iran that your time
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zone’s already kind of set to your um
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your co-workers and your
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customers so maybe don’t fight
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that jet lag like just keep kind of
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going with it and kind of keep that same
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schedule that you had before i realized
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it’s not quite as fun if your time
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schedule is a little bit different than
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kind of some of the locals and stuff
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like that
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but it can work pretty well at least for
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like the first couple days of the first
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week that way you can kind of get your
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bearings and you’re already working kind
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of the same time as before
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and you know if you don’t tell your
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employees or clients you’d be surprised
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how many employees clients co-workers
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don’t even know that you’re gone if you
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don’t say anything
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so number four is going to be using
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google calendars time zones within
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google calendars you can um
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change the settings so you have two time
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zones so you can see your time zone and
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then the time zone of your home or maybe
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one of your major clients or a group of
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major clients or something like that
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that’s huge for me i use it even when
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i’m in denver because i have a couple
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clients on the west coast which isn’t
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far it’s only an hour difference but i’m
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an idiot and so i forget which way it
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works all the time and so i just have
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two times right there so i can see real
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quickly okay
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it is 10 o’clock in denver and obviously
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right now in istanbul it’s you know 8
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p.m or something like that okay killer
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so we should schedule time bam you know
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that’ll help you out quite a bit i’ll
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put some
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notes
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in the blog post some directions on how
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to do that as well if you guys want to
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check out the blog post so number five
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is pretty
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self-explanatory travel north and south
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don’t travel east and west so the what i
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mean by that is the more you travel
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north and south
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and the less you travel east and west
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the less you have to deal with time zone
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differences
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for me being in america i can go to
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south america i can go to countries that
04:55
are
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super different from america and i can
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experience some crazy stuff and the time
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zone differences may be two or three
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hours different which really isn’t that
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big of a deal at all
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so
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those are my five tips right there
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number one chunk meetings
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number two email once a day
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number three jet lag what make it work
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for you number four is google calendar
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and then number five is try to stay in
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the same time zone try to travel north
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and south not east and west this is
05:27
lauren with digital nomad lifestyle
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official digital nomad lifestyle on
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instagram
05:34
digital nomad lifestyle on youtube and
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we have a facebook group then
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digitalnomadlifestyle.com
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for the website alright until next time