Met a guy in Lisbon who only works from coworking cafes for 3 hours a day

I was at a cafe in Lisbon last week and got talking to a freelance designer from Germany. He told me he moved here six months ago and his whole routine is built around finding a new spot to work from each morning. He said, 'If I'm not packed up by 1 PM, I've failed.' It made me rethink my own habit of trying to work a full 8-hour day from my apartment. Has anyone else built their relocation around a super short, focused work schedule like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

vera292mo ago

That whole idea is so tied to a certain kind of job though. My friend is a nurse and she just laughed when I read this to her. For a lot of people, the work itself decides the hours, not the other way around. It's a cool setup if you can make it work, but it feels like a very specific digital nomad bubble. Makes you wonder if this is only for people who sell pixels and not for people who fix pipes or teach kids.

fionanguyen2mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah, it's totally a bubble thing. I tried explaining my 'flexible schedule' to my cousin who's a line cook, and he just stared at me like I had two heads. He's got the dinner rush, I've got... well, I guess my own weird rush to hit a deadline I made up for myself. Makes you feel a bit silly, doesn't it? Like my biggest work crisis is a slow wifi signal, while his is a literal grease fire.

kimr9112h ago

I saw this article somewhere about how some people have that hyper focused window of like 2-3 hours and apparently that's when most people actually get their real work done anyway. The rest is just meetings and emails and scrolling. So maybe the guy's onto something, even if it sounds kind of extreme. The whole cafe thing sounds nice but I bet it gets old finding a seat and dealing with the noise every single day.

sean482mo ago

My buddy in Lisbon does the same thing, hits a cafe at 9 and is done by noon. It's a sweet gig if your job is just a laptop. But fionanguyen is right, it's a bubble. Try telling a teacher or a mechanic they can pack up at 1 PM. Their work doesn't fit in a tote bag.