For many years I worked for US based company from European timezone. 9-10 hours difference. It's been okay. I started work around 2-3pm and left around 10pm. It was pretty tough because I couldn't sleep for 3-4 hours after my work day ends that meant 1-2am.

On the bright side I could sleep as much as I wanted in the morning and do chores in first half of the day.

What helped me with motivation is Daily Standup with my team where you have to report about your L24 progress and what you're going to be N24. This added enough stress to increase my motivation to do stuff. I couldn't show up with nothing or lie my way out of it. Also US comp was pretty big motivator. Geo arbitrage etc.

I can understand the comp being a motivator, but stress. L24 and N24 has always seemed ludicrous. That's insane micromanaging. Is it really unacceptable for something to take more than a work day? Not every task can be broken down that way, you also sometimes change something which breaks something else so you are actually further back. Plus when do you plan work?

I guess we have different understanding of L24/N24. There is no need for a task to take 1 day, it can span days easily. I had tasks which spanned a week or two just because they were deep technical work. But I was able to explain what I did and what progress did I make to the room of engineers. Nobody has been asking me about deadlines or when would it be done, it's not that type of meeting. But it's a nice check-in point to see if I(or the team) move in the right direction and if I don't report meaningful progress for multiple days maybe I need help or extra eyes on my work. I would post draft PR with the code so other people can evaluate and correct my approach. This saves you from working days in the wrong direction.