The Creative Nest

There is something very glamorous sounding about working with people in different time zones. It makes you feel important. International. Connected. Like you're some kind of corporate citizen of the world. Until you actually have to do it. Then it becomes a giant game of, “What time is it where you are, and more importantly, what time is it supposed to be where I am?” Working across time zones sounds easy enough when you think about it. You look at a clock, figure out the difference and move on with your day. At least that's what I used to think. Then you start having meetings with people who are an hour ahead, two hours behind, or several hours away, and suddenly you are doing time-zone math before you've even had coffee. I have discovered that my brain does not appreciate time-zone math before coffee. Or after coffee, for that matter. The real problem is that your calendar may understand time zones perfectly well, but your body does not. Your calendar says, “Meeting at 8:...

Do you ever wake up and somehow just know the day is going to be a rough one? Nothing has actually happened yet. You haven't spilled your coffee, nobody has annoyed you, and your computer hasn't decided it needs to install 47 updates before allowing you to do anything productive. Technically, everything is fine. And yet… there it is. That feeling. You look at the clock, take a sip of coffee, and your brain quietly whispers, “Oh, this is going to be a day.” I don't necessarily mean the kind of day where everything goes catastrophically wrong. Those are easy to identify. I'm talking about the weird days. The days where things are just… off. For me, one of the biggest warning signs is work. There are days when the requests coming in are perfectly normal. You read them, understand what someone needs, take care of it, and move along with your life. Then there are the other days. The days when the requests start coming in and you find yourself staring at the screen thinking...