Aug – Sep 2026 · operating model

Olli's optimized week

One fixed spine — 06:45 wake, morning routine, admin on sit-down, 22:30 cap — with two shapes on top: WFH (Mon, Fri) and office (Tue–Thu). It all turns on one fact: Zürich is +9h ahead of US-Pacific, so your morning is the US night, and the West Coast only wakes at 17:00 your time.

↔ Blocks are sized to real duration. On mobile, swipe the grid sideways to see the whole week.

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Monday

WFH · admin-heavy

stop 18:30

Tuesday

Office AM · US night

22:30 cap

Wednesday

Office AM · US night

22:30 cap

Thursday

Office AM · admin PM

stop 18:30

Friday

WFH · protected

work ends 16:00 → run
Morning routineRun / workoutTrain · read emailsDeep workAdmin / emailEuro meetings · 1:1sUS core (West-Coast-fresh)US block 2Kids' dinnerFlex / review / lunchFamily / freeSleep · wind-down

This week, in hours

38h 30m
total planned work / week
deep 10h 45m · US 13h · Euro 8h 30m · admin 3h 15m · train 3h
10h 45mDeep work
13hUS meetings (core + block 2)
8h 30mEuro meetings · 1:1s
3h 15mAdmin / email
6h 45mRun / workout
3hTrain (read emails)

Meetings are 21h 30m of the 38h 30m (US 13h vs Euro 8h 30m); deep work 10h 45m is the protected core. Run 6h 45m/wk sits outside work.

Why it's shaped this way

Deep work in the dead zone

Mid-morning ZH = the middle of the US night — structurally un-bookable. A 90-min–2h deep block lands there every day; the highest-leverage time on the calendar, and it costs the team nothing.

US core 16:30–18:30

16:30–18:30 ZH; by 17:00 (08:00 PT) the whole West Coast is fresh. Real 1:1s + decisions there; anything past ~13:30 PT goes async or to a US deputy — that shrinks the late tail.

22:30 is a wall

Laptop shut + screens off at 22:30, in bed 23:15 → 7.5h against the fixed 06:45 dropoff wake. Skip the wind-down and the cap quietly becomes a 6-hour night.

Two late nights, three recovery

Tue + Wed carry the US-evening weight. Mon, Thu, Fri end early to bank ~8h × 3 — two consecutive late nights is the real sleep-debt exposure, so Thursday genuinely stops at 18:30.

The run is right after arrival

Office days: straight off the train into the run with Joe (45 min + shower = 1h15), then the deep block. Meditate on the train in, read on the way back — never reactive email on either leg.

Keep: your US 1:1s (the two US-manager reports need the overlap). Cut: group forums (≈67% of your meeting time) and the ≥21:00 tail (down to ≤3/week) — the ~50% of August still tentative is the cut list while it's soft. Phase 2: the meeting blocks (blue = Euro, indigo = US) are where you'll allocate people, topics + objectives, and decide regular-meetings vs office-hours vs flex.