People often ask me what a normal day looks like here. They usually expect either a postcard or a confession that it's all secretly the same as an office in Madrid. The truth sits somewhere in between: the work is real, the deadlines are real, and the sea happens to be at the end of the street.

This is roughly how a good weekday goes for me. Not every day looks like this, and some days are just meetings and a sandwich. But when it works, it works like this.

Early swim at La Puntilla

Sunrise in Gran Canaria comes late by European standards, so "early" doesn't mean brutal. Most mornings I'm on the sand at La Puntilla a little after first light, when the beach is mostly locals walking dogs and a few older swimmers who have been doing this for decades.

The reef that runs along Las Canteras keeps the water at this end calm on most days, which is exactly why I like it before work. No waves to fight and no planning required, just a swim along the shore and back. Twenty minutes is plenty.

Afterwards I pick up some fruit on the way home. Papayas, bananas and whatever looks good that week. The Canarian bananas are smaller and sweeter than the ones you get in northern Europe, and I've stopped trying to explain that to visitors. They have to try one.

The morning focus block, with good coffee

By around 8:30 I'm at my desk at FICO. The first thing that happens is coffee, and I'm a bit particular about it. We serve Italian coffee at the coworking, and one of the best one you can find which make it over before the work even starts.

The morning is for the hard stuff. Architecture decisions, reviewing a tricky pull request, writing the document nobody else wants to write. I keep my calendar empty until late morning whenever I can, close the chat apps, and let the quiet do its job.

The room helps. Everyone around you is working too, and there's something about that shared concentration that makes it easier to stay on task than at the kitchen table. It's not magic, just good company.

Fish lunch on the promenade

Lunch is where the community side of FICO shows up. Around 13:30 or 14:00, which is lunchtime in Spain, someone says "fish?" and four or five of us walk down to the Paseo de Las Canteras.

There's no shortage of places along the promenade serving the catch of the day, papas arrugadas with mojo and a simple salad. On a longer day we'll walk to the Mercado del Puerto instead, about ten minutes away, where the food stalls make it easy to try a bit of everything.

The table is usually a mix: a couple of developers, a designer, someone running their own startup, maybe a newcomer who arrived last week. Half the conversation is about work, and plenty of good ideas and a few collaborations have started over those lunches. The other half is about whether the swell will be up tomorrow.

Handovers, then an evening run

The Canary Islands share a time zone with the UK and Portugal, one hour behind most of mainland Europe. That works well for a team spread across Europe: I'm online when Berlin and Milan are, and the afternoon is when I wrap things up with them.

So the late afternoon is for handovers. I answer the questions that piled up after lunch, write clear notes for whoever picks up the work next, and push the last commits of the day. I try to leave the code in a state that future me won't curse at tomorrow morning.

Then I close the laptop and go for a walk along the Paseo. From La Puntilla to La Cícer and back is about six kilometres, flat and car-free, with the light going orange over the water. By the time I'm back, the terraces are filling up, and someone from FICO usually suggests a few tapas and a drink.

Why this rhythm works for me

None of this is extraordinary on its own. A swim, a coffee, a long focus block, lunch with people I like and a run at the end of the day. What makes it work is that it all happens within walking distance, so nothing needs a car, a booking, or a plan.

That was a big part of why I built FICO as a coworking space in Las Palmas right here, a few minutes from the beach. If you're curious about the small version of this idea, I wrote about my 3-minute beach walk routine and why the distance matters so much.

If you're thinking of working from Las Palmas for a few weeks or a few years, don't try to copy my day. Find the two or three things you'd do every day if they were close enough, then build your work around being near them. Here, most of those things are already on the same street.