This guest post is written by Jan Schulze-Siebert who works for German review website vetalio.de. He decided to leave German winter behind and stay with his colleagues at Surf Office Gran Canaria.
Workations are often meant for freelancers and companies to focus on a retreat, but we had already finished our main projects beforehand. We had just launched our facelift and rebranding of vetalio, so we decided to treat ourselvesby doing our daily work at the Surf Office, and of course, by surfing.
This was our second company retreat this year. We stayed in Mallorca for a week in March, so we’re no strangers to the concept of working in beautiful places.
Work-Life-Balance
One of the best parts of traveling and working at the same time is that you gain a lot of new experiences. You can step out of the workaday life and find new hobbies, friends, or simply enjoy the weather.
This is why we started learning how to surf in Gran Canaria. The beach right outside the Surf Office has waves for beginners, the surf pros, and everyone in between. In addition to surfing, we found a lot of other ways to stay active. The boardwalk is so long, that you can run all the way down to the Las Palmas Muscle Beach and get a second workout in. We also did a Stand Up Paddling (SUP) trip on the weekend.
As a small startup, it is entirely possible to move with the whole team to other places without many problems. Everyone from our company is allowed to come with us, and everyone on our team is in a great mood due to our activities and team building.
Abide by the rules
If you also want to work from sunny places all over the world, your team should abide by some essential rules. Here are the three main pillars of having a disciplined workation.
Rule 1: Workation is not a vacation
Although you still pack up your suitcases and hop on a plane, it’s not a holiday. It is possible that many of your friends and business partner won’t believe you when you tell them that you aren’t relaxing on the beach every day. But with an office where you can use external monitors and have your own desk, it’s a good atmosphere to focus on your business.
Rule 2: Have a daily order of business
To structure your workflow, you have to plan your tasks for every day. Try to get into a normal rhythm for working. Get up in the morning, have some breakfast, do some work, and enjoy your stay. Don’t forget to have breaks: they are very important to stay creative.
Rule 3: Business before pleasure
A workation is not just for business. You are working at a place where others stay for vacation, so feel free to have a great time. Beside group activities, everybody should have time for him/herself.
Why we can do workations
As an online startup, the world is our workplace (as long as there is a good WiFi connection), and we can run our business from anywhere. Our review platform was founded as a private project in 2010, and we have since grown to 10 employees.
In 2014, we rebrand to our new name vetalio. We have our own editorial team and write the reviews ourselves. With over 20 different categories, it is the biggest review platform especially for online services and cloud applications in Germany. The most popular categories are cloud storage, video on demand, and music streaming. For the future of vetalio, we will review even more new products in different categories. Furthermore, our users will get a chance to rate and give their own opinion.
Our workation wish list: Surf Office in Santa Cruz, California, Bali and Turkey.
