Tim fulfilled a personal wish and traveled while working for around four months in the western US and parts of South America. During that trip we revisited a core Wolf Maps agreement: we want to be a calm company.
In a previous article I wrote about how we work fully remotely. At the end I mentioned a follow-up about working across time zones. This is that follow-up.
We made a quick decision: we let the old rhythm go.
The time difference was usually 9 hours between Tim’s location and the Netherlands. We had planned one weekly call for sprint planning and ongoing topics. In practice that became hard: Tim was sometimes in remote areas and not always reachable, and I had evening responsibilities.
So we quickly chose to let our routine go.
We temporarily broke our own system. Risky? Maybe. But by discussing it openly and checking how we felt, it was the right call. We kept good energy, just at a lower pace. That fits a calm company: adapt, do not force.
The hard part is truly accepting the change. If you “let go” externally but resist internally, tension remains. I think this is why it does not work for everyone. But you can practice this in small ways by checking in regularly and actually listening to each other and to yourself.
After letting go, we focused on what worked:
Tim - Every morning I woke up curious to check my phone for news from the Netherlands, and usually there was some.
Temporarily letting go of our collaboration system and talking about it helped us keep building without stress. It also pushed us to focus more on sales and less on development, which unexpectedly accelerated growth.
This week we are both back in the Netherlands. We are returning to sprint planning and roadmap rhythm. Plenty to do: we are onboarding great customers and building new maps.
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