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Timezone Arbitrage

Timezone Arbitrage

Hacking productivity coast to coast.

Tyler Denk
April 15, 2025

True story: I gave up drinking coffee a few weeks ago.

In its place I’ve been starting my mornings with AG1. Their science-backed formula is packed with vitamins and minerals to help alleviate bloating, support sustained energy and whole body health.

As a founder, I’m always looking for a competitive edge — AG1 has helped improve my focus and energy.

Correlation isn’t causation, but beehiiv has had its best weeks in company history since I’ve gotten back to LA and started using AG1 again 🤷.

I made a few calls and got an incredible offer for my readers (i.e. you). Sign up to get AG1 delivered to your doorstep, and you’ll get a full welcome kit and free $76 gift too.

I spend winters in Medellin (EST) and the rest of the year in Los Angeles (PST).

Since getting back to LA a couple weeks ago I’ve noticed that I’m considerably more productive here. Like, irrefutably cranking out so much more work. (Is it the AG1??)

I’m a total optimization nutcase, or at least, I sort of need to be to successfully build this company. So I’ve been thinking more and more about this to try to better understand and I think I’ve cracked the code.

Maybe it’s common sense. Maybe there’s something here others can extract to build their teams. Maybe no one gives a shit at all. But it’s my newsletter and I thought it was pretty interesting so here it is.

Time zone arbitrage baby.

But first, it’s probably worth starting with some additional context. We’re a totally remote company with nearly 100 employees located around the globe. About 75% of our employees are located in the US, so most of our recurring meetings are scheduled to overlap between the coasts.

For me personally, meetings start around 11:30am EST (or 8:30am PST when I’m back in LA).

And lastly, for the sake of transparency, here’s what my baseline calendar looks like (before a bunch of additional stuff gets added to it). Can you tell how much I dislike spending time in meetings?

🙃 🙃 🙃

For the type of work I enjoy doing, I consider this to be ideal. I prefer long blocks of focus time to actually do deep work. We have Focus Days on Tuesdays and Thursdays with no meetings. And I try to limit the number of recurring meetings to just the bare minimum required to ensure that everyone is aligned.

Although when push comes to shove, a whole lot of things typically come up and my weeks end up looking a lot more like this:

😡 😡 😡

Anyway, now that I’ve exposed myself and shared my calendar for all 100,00 of you to criticize (or admire idk), I feel like you can better understand where I’m coming from.

Here’s why I’m twice as productive working from the west coast…

Forcing functions

When I’m on the east coast, my meetings typically start a bit later in the morning (see above: 11:30am).

That makes it a whole lot easier to sleep in an extra 20 minutes when I’m up late working the night before. I can do a few extra sets in the gym without being in a huge rush, and maybe sit down to eat breakfast for more than 5 minutes between meetings.

I try to get to my computer by 8:30am, but if it ends up being 9 or 9:30 I don’t sweat it — I know I’ll work late and can make up for it later.

On the west coast it’s quite the contrary; my mornings operate by the minute:

Wakeup 5:30am (no option to snooze or sleep in)
Stretch and morning routine stuff for a few
45 minutes on Slack and email to unblock people on the east coast
Gym from 7 to 8am
Back at my desk by 8:30am for my first meeting

There’s legit not a spare minute of wiggle room.

And because I refuse to pay Equinox $5 per day to park, I have to finish my workout before 8am or I’ll get a ticket when the free street parking ends 🤣. That, and my early morning meetings are two super effective forcing functions to ensure I’m as productive as possible in the morning.

Focus time

On the east coast, my focus time comes before my meetings kick up for the day (between 8:30 and 11:30am), and then again after I finish my meetings (after 6pm).

There are a handful of problems with that though:

Those 3 hours of focus time in the mornings happen to be when almost everyone else at the company is online and starting their days (most of the team is on the east coast). My “focus time” quickly becomes responding to things, unblocking people, resolving issues, etc.
Even if I am able to focus during those 3 hours, rarely is it enough time to complete my most important tasks. Which means I have to context switch away from what I was working on, leave it unfinished, and then I find myself distracted and less present in meetings.
Meetings are rarely just a 30 minute sync and that’s the end of it. Each meeting ends with tons of action items, follow ups, and things that are suddenly super important to address. By the time I’m done with my block of meetings, I’ve collected 10 new things I need to prioritize and resolve.
After addressing those new items, it’s typically after 8pm and I’m absolutely drained and unable to really do quality work.

Now compare that to when I’m on the west coast and I am thrown right into meetings at 8:30am:

I am considerably more attentive and present in meetings because I’m fresh out of the gym, wide awake, and haven’t gotten distracted with other work.
My block of meetings typically wraps by 2pm, so I have 7 hours of undisrupted time to focus on deep work afterwards.
And because most of the team is on the east coast, those 7 hours are much much quieter (it’s after 5pm for them, along with all the other east coast businesses we interact with).

Conclusion

Obviously this all was hyper specific to my circumstances, but I think there are a few simple takeaways to really optimize the workday (according to me).

Waking up early, working out, and doing something physically challenging to start the day is critical.
Early meetings as a forcing function helps to have more productive mornings and be more present and attentive in meetings.
Optimize for long blocks of focus time; context switching kills momentum.
Build a schedule where your focus time occurs when there are less distractions elsewhere (also why I love working on the weekends).
Fuck Slack. I think a lot of people conflate being active on Slack with actually doing work (it’s usually not).

Like I said from the jump — I’m a total nutcase. But I’m playing to win, and increasing my productivity even just a few percent compounds over time.

West coast best coast 🏄‍♂️.

If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe: mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/timezone-arbitrage

Credit: Me

Corner office, multiple monitors, beach views, and a couple of randomly placed rocks. What more could you ask for?

Think you can generate a better office? Reply with your submissions 📨.

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Click on any of the tracks below to get in a groove — each selected from the full Big Desk Energy playlist.

Some of my favorite content I found on the internet this week…

44 Harsh Truths about Human Nature, a podcast with Naval Ravikant (Chris Williamson)
CEO of beehiiv (wait, that’s me) shares his secrets on building a startup (Two Dads in Tech)
Interesting piece on genetic editing and bringing back a predator that has been extinct for 10,000 years (Pirate Wires)
Figma designs edited with AI (Daryl Patigas)