Episode 7: Work Schedules
How does it work, working for U.S. clients while living in Portugal? How on earth did a move during tax season actually work? We discuss in this podcast.
Hello and welcome to As the Dinoson's Turn. I'm Jason.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Tracy.
SPEAKER_01And today we want to talk about work life balance here at Portugal or what our workday looks like and work-life balance, I guess. So we're here in Portugal on a I guess it's a work visa, digital nomad visa is what it's called. And so in order to be here, we have to show that we have income from a source that is not Portuguese. And so I have my company and and do all the different things that I do in that that business, the tax preparation and the teaching of continuing education courses and such that I do. And so we are here working. This isn't uh a jaunt. It is a jaunt, but it's not the kind of like pleasure trip or whatever. It is, but it's not. I mean, we we have to work to be here, and so we get up and and we work each day, but I guess I feel like some of the balance that was missing in the U.S. exists here. We the number of hours that we work is probably about the same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think one of the biggest questions we got was how are you even going to make this work? Because there's six hours difference. We're six hours ahead of central time. Um we still work on central time. Um we're up, you know, at seven. I don't get up before seven. Okay, we're up at seven. Um and you know, like we'll take the kids to school now that they're not in school, we'll see how our day rolls. But generally in the mornings we will run errands, we'll stop for coffee, we'll do some work. Um, but the bulk of the work actually starts at around probably 3 p.m. here. Um, and that's where we start having more phone calls, meetings, um, kind of buckle in to go ahead and get additional work finished. Um, I work in spurts and chunks. I'm working for Jason right now. Um, I can still teach online if I wanted to, um, or if the opportunity presents itself, I could still do advising and student success coaching. Um I am looking at maybe forming my own corporation, um, doing some tutoring and those types of things here for students who are learning Spanish. But um, at the meanwhile, I'm I'm working with Jason, and that's actually been pretty helpful. Um managing calendar and checking email and all of those things and gonna start some research. But it's given me time to do additional things as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so our day, I mean, like Tracy said, we'll see now that school is out how the day flows, but the way that things went when the kids were in school was we would drop them off at around eight eight thirty or a little before eight thirty is when their school day started, but around eight thirty, and then I don't know, we would go run errands or go to the coffee shop. We have a particular coffee shop, the Cyber Cafe, that we really like, and sometimes we go to other coffee shops in town, sometimes we rotate among them, or we go to Braga, we've been to the hardware store several times. I mean, we do things we do errands and stuff that needs done, like Portuguese stuff that needs done in the morning. Gets done in the morning, and then in the afternoon I would say is US work time, my work time. Um I might work some in the morning, like before the kids go to school, or if sometimes Tracy takes them to school and then she goes and does laundry or something on her own, and I'll stay home and work. But generally the bulk of the workday starts around the same time that it would if I was in Iowa still. And then every day, always I have things from noon till one central time, which is 6 to 7 p.m. here in Portugal, probably about four days out of five every week. And and then once that wraps up, usually I might work a little bit beyond that, but I try to wrap my day up around seven or eight Portugal time, which would be around two or three um central time.
SPEAKER_00Right. One of the things that we've learned or noticed is that we are more focused in the work that we're doing. So um because we are able to get all of that stuff done before we start working, that's been a big change that's been helpful. Um, but more than that, um we get to spend a lot of time together. Of course, I'm working with him, and so I think that's really good, but we actually have time, which we didn't actually have before. Um, you know, we would joke, we're like, oh, let's go get our coffee. And I said to him the other day, I'm like, you know, that our coffee usually would be you drive me through Strava Starbucks, we get my coffee, and then I'd jump out of the car. Um and we we like to spend time together. So I mean, I think that was really important for us and part of this move. But I'd say more than that, um, people have asked, how can you even do this? How is this gonna work? Um, it was a leap of faith on our part, but it actually has worked. And I was worried because it was the middle of tax season, and I thought, well, maybe we're gonna have to go ahead and, you know, shut things down, or or what's gonna happen, what are we gonna have an interruption and all of those things? And it didn't happen that way. So we were pretty lucky in that respect that we could go ahead and continue working, get through tax season and all of those elements, and it really went really smoothly. We have had a hiccup or two. Well, with but it's not because we're digital nomads.
SPEAKER_01Right. So I first of all the move in the middle of tax season was not planned. We've talked about that before, that that's just kind of how it came about. Um, but it was fine. It was probably two days where I wasn't able to I don't even know if it was that. It was really just the move day where I couldn't log. I mean, everything for the most part was always done for several years now. It's been done digitally anyway, everything's in the cloud. Um so you just log into those systems. You have a computer with a VPN, you log into your systems. There was one thing I had to change at the IRS, which was my e-file location address, but that's done online through the IRS e-services portal. Beyond that, it was business as usual, really, and and we got through tax season and and all the different teaching that I do is done on different web platforms, a lot on Zoom, go to webinar, and other such things. So that's that's all remote. Um we have so cell phones. Um, I've kept my US cell phone just because certain logins to certain things are tied to that phone number, and I guess it's a combination of maybe not having time or or not making time, I guess, to see about changing those things over. So I've kept my US cell phone, but it's always on airplane mode. Right. And I changed the voicemail to tell people to call my Google Voice number, which I set up before we moved. And Google Voice works anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access. So clients can call me, people can text me on that number, and they don't know any difference.
SPEAKER_00I'd say that in addition to the Google Voice, using WhatsApp has been a great thing. I tried to change my secondary verification for a couple of US things, and I have to have a US phone number. Um, and so I think that's our biggest hiccup. We haven't been able to figure those things out, so we might ask at the expat forum what what should we do? Have you found a way around this? And there might the answer might be no. Um, but I'd say that that's that's a large piece of it. Um I am never on that cell phone unless I'm getting a secondary authentication. Um and so that's it's in airplane mode, it's hooked to the Wi-Fi, um, that's the only time it's used. Um, but we live on we live in the mountains, and we don't always high. We don't always a neighbor walking by who's wonderful. We don't always have a signal, um, and so that's kind of difficult. And it has been an issue for us when we had a giant rainstorm.
SPEAKER_01That's true. So Tracy was saying the the one technical hiccup that we had, that's what she's talking about here, was the power went out during a huge rainstorm and we had no internet, and we we live in an area with kind of sketchy cell phone service, and so the hot spot didn't work either. So we had to go to the we had to go to the laundromat. We did. And I stayed in the car and gave my presentation on the on the hot spot from the car while Tracy did laundry.
SPEAKER_00I took advantage of the time in town knowing that I was gonna have to be there for at least an hour. I might as well do something useful. But they cleared the lot next to us, it had been really overgrown. They cleared it, they cut things back, they cut back too much, and so when the rain came, it took out a giant olive tree that then landed on the power lines, and then lightning hit on top of that. And so, in addition to pulling down lines that blew a breaker, we were like, we don't have power. So we have had to come up with um a contingency plan. So that was one of the things we learned. Um, because rainstorms are gonna happen. I mean, obviously, they happen anywhere, and so we were like, what do we do? Because you had presentations to do. And so we got a mobile hotspot that's just you know for internet, um, and it's charged and it's ready to go. And if we still need like service or something like that, then we can go ahead and and get to a higher ground because we're kind of in a valley here. Um, but I think that that additional internet piece, um, having that backup is a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, we can take it with us when we travel. We're gonna go on a giant Portuguese road trip. Um, and the good thing is we're gonna take a week and while he's got presentation breaks, but we still have Portuguese classes that we're taking at night. Um, my Portuguese classes are happening sometimes while he's presenting, and he's going to start taking Portuguese classes that will go until what, like nine? Nine o'clock every night. So I think that that's one of the things too. Life is paced differently. So um I might have gotten up at 6:15 in the US. Now I get up at 7. I would go to bed though at like 8, 8:30 because I was just exhausted. Um, and here I'm staying up till 11 midnight. That's pretty common for us. So um it also helps though that I can lay down and take a 30-minute nap if I need to in the afternoon. You'll send me to do that sometimes. Um but my work is spread out um in different ways and in different places.
SPEAKER_01So I think that the work the number of hours is probably the same. Might even be slightly less, I guess, than in the US, but I think that we're both more efficient at the things that we do. I and I think it's because we can take care of all of the things that need taken care of, and for some reason it just seemed like that couldn't happen with the way we were living life in the United States.
SPEAKER_00Um there never seem to be enough hours in the day. And I also think that's because it's a natural thing. Like our list was always a mile long, and now we're living in a culture where you have a list, but if you get one thing off your list, Eureka, you you've scored, you've gotten it done. Um, or if you even make progress on the piece of that list, I don't feel as guilty of not accomplishing it. And I think that's a bigger thing. It's the way we were feeling about it. Maybe um we're probably more difficult uh than other people, or we're harder on ourselves. But it I feel like you're right, we're more focused though. Um and so we're more efficient, and um we've been pretty creative. So I look forward to seeing like we've got research and projects coming up, and so um that will be a good expansion for some of the continuing education and um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Things are good.
SPEAKER_00I still think it's the best move we ever made.
SPEAKER_01All right, join us again next time for another episode. If you've been listening to the As the Dinasons Turn podcast, check out our blog at as the dinosaurs turn.com and join us again next time for another episode.