You keep the work. We take away everything else.
A five-day focus week for software teams in rural Galicia. Monday morning to Friday evening. Fibre internet, a long table, and nothing to arrange but your own flight.
The format
- Duration
- Monday morning to Friday evening Four nights — five if you fly in on Sunday
- Group
- 8 to 14 people One team, the whole house to yourselves
- Price
- €1,100 per person Excluding flights
- Where
- Rural Galicia, Spain Two hours from Porto
- Season
- April–June, September–October We’re running our first weeks in 2027
A working week somewhere better
Your team already knows what it needs to build. What it never gets is five uninterrupted days together to do it.
Focustime is a house in the Galician countryside, far enough from anything that leaving isn’t an option. Fibre internet, so you’re fully reachable and fully productive. A separate work room with whiteboards and a wall you can cover in paper. A long table where everyone eats together.
You bring the work and the people who own it. We handle the rest — the house, every meal, the transport, the afternoon off, and everything that would otherwise land on whoever got stuck organising it.
What Focustime is not
Not team building. Not a company outing. Not a retreat. And not facilitation — most teams bring their own scrum master, and it’s not our job to take that over.
It’s a working week. We just make it a very good one.
How a week runs
Monday
You land in Porto, we pick you up. Lunch on arrival, then the afternoon to settle in and agree what each of you wants finished by Friday.
Tuesday
The first full day. Breakfast when you want it, lunch at the long table, dinner cooked by someone local.
Wednesday
Work until lunch. Then everyone stops: a vineyard in the Ribeira Sacra, a river, a walk. Back at the house for dinner.
Thursday
A full day, and usually the best one. By now nobody is checking their phone.
Friday
Work until eleven, then show each other what you made. Then we drive you back.
That’s three and a half working days without a single meeting invite, an interrupt from another team, or a commute. Most teams get more done than in a normal week of five.
Around that, you set your own rhythm. We keep the shape of the week; what happens inside it is yours.
Galician food, cooked by Galicians
Nobody cooks and nobody does dishes. Meals are made by local cooks with local food — not a catering company with a van.
One evening a pulpeiro arrives with a copper pot and a gas ring and cooks the octopus in front of you. Another night it’s a churrasco on the fire outside. There is empanada from the village bakery, caldo, bread from a wood oven, and Albariño from forty minutes down the road.
Tell us what people can’t eat and we’ll take care of it. That’s the whole of your involvement.
Rural Galicia
Galicia is the green corner of Spain — Atlantic, forested, granite, and almost entirely unknown to the people who go to Barcelona and Alicante.
We work in the inland hills between Pontevedra and Ourense, and in the Ribeira Sacra, where the Sil river cuts canyons through terraced vineyards. Villages of thirty people. Stone houses with chestnut beams. Fibre internet, because Spain ran fibre into places you wouldn’t expect.
The coast is forty minutes away when you want it, and far enough that nobody drifts off to the beach when they shouldn’t.
We select each house ourselves, and we don’t book anything we haven’t checked: verified fibre with real upload speed, a proper work room, exclusive use of the whole property, and nowhere within walking distance to escape to.
What €1,100 per person includes
Included
- Four nights, private room for everyone
- All meals, cooked on site
- A dedicated work room with whiteboards and a screen
- Verified fibre internet
- Airport pickup and return
- One afternoon out — winery, river, or coast
- A host on site all week
Not included
- Your flight to Porto or Santiago de Compostela
That’s the whole list.
Who’s behind this
I’m Tjaco Oostdijk. I’ve been a backend engineer and tech lead for years — Elixir and Phoenix, platform teams, the usual. Before that I spent twenty-two years as a working musician and music teacher.
I’ve watched a lot of teams never get the week they needed. And I’ve spent years travelling in Galicia, learning Spanish, and slowly working out that what I actually want to do is put those two things together.
We’re running our first weeks in 2027. If you want your team to be one of them, I’d like to hear from you.
Talk to us
Tell us about your team and what you’re trying to get done. We’ll come back with dates, a house, and a price.
Or just email tjaco@focustime.io.
Are you in Galicia?
We’re always looking for houses, cooks and people who know the region. If you own a property, cook, or run something we should know about — get in touch.