If I read the news right, a couple of you guys and gals have to stay at home for the next few weeks either twiddling your thumbs or working from home. In the suburbs of Chiang Mai, life is pretty normal right now, we haven’t been ordered to stay home, and virtually nobody is wearing masks except the few who want to protect themselves against the air pollution. In the area I live, few are concerned about the coronavirus, but I do have extensive experience working from home so I thought it may be interesting sharing a typical schedule.
It’s stating the obvious but once you start working from home, your house is also your office, and it can be hard separating the two. So I’d recommend setting a room for work only, or if not possible a space reserved for work, and setup a schedule to introduce some routine. In the beginning, I used to have breakfast, and then immediately started to work with few pauses, but it turned out not to be such a good idea, so I made some changes.
Here’s a typical schedule during a weekday:
- 7:00 to 8:00 – Waking up. I don’t use an alarm clock, just wake up naturally. I may play a bit with the phone in the bed for a few minutes
- Until 9:00 – Breakfast, working in the garden, cleaning the house, learning Thai language, etc… anything I can do without having to use a computer…
- 9:00 – 12:00 – Working with regular breaks every 15 minutes mostly due to eye strain (I need to control my eye pressure). But even if you don’t have any health issues, it’s a good idea to take breaks regularly be it 30 minutes or one hour. To make sure I do take breaks I use a countdown clock, and during short breaks, I may do some cleaning and preparing ingredients for lunch. Workwise, I usually start by reading emails, then check new stories from RSS feeds and twitter.
- 12:00 – 14:00 – Lunch and relaxing mostly lying down on the bed 😉
- 14:00 – 15:xx – Some more work
- 15:xx – 16:00 – More lying on the bed… seriously. I tend to wash dishes during that time too
- 16:00 – 18:00 – More work with the usual breaks every 15 minutes
- Half of the days I work until 18:00, others until 21:00 – 22:00, so here the split
- Short working days – Exercise for 30 minutes (run), then go out for a few drinks or dinner at the restaurant
- Long working days
- 18:00 – 19:00 – Dinner + more rest on the bed
- 19:00 – 21:00 to 22:00 – More work, often looking for articles ideas for the next day, or as I do now write another article
- 22:xx – 7:xx – Sleep
Don’t worry, I do brush my teeth and shower, wash hands, and other things humans have to do, I just did not include those in the schedule 😉 I do have to admit my dressing code during long working days is pretty relax though… Anyway, if you’re new to this working at home thing, I hope you enjoy your new temporary life.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Ah, you’re a Chiang-Mai teleworker? 😉 Western salary and Thai rental costs… Lucky man!
I don’t technically earn a “salary” since my income varies monthly, and while the cost of living is low, there are some costs associated with working legally. I had to open a limited company in another country, and every month I have to pay a monthly fee of around $500 to a Thai company for shared office space rental (which I don’t use), and to handle the paperwork for taxes, social security, work permit, visa, etc… Other downsides include that I won’t get government pension (except the ~$20 per month from Thai government when I’m 60), and unemployment is not… Read more »
Thanks for that. Its interesting as I watched a couple of videos about living/working in Chiang Mai about a year ago. Good to hear from someone about the “peculiarities” 😉
TBH Thailand sounds like it’s only really suitable for the short term and not life. It looks like getting permanent residence is a massive pain and you aren’t eligible for many things until you become Thai and that means having PR for 10 years etc etc… Like with people that end up doing English teaching in Asia for far too long I think some of the digital nomads in Thailand are going to hit a hard bump and wind up 50 and back at their mum and dads.
I’m actually going to try to get permanent residency and if successful later Thai citizenship without going the marriage router that is a bit faster. Basically to apply for permanent residency you’d need to work for three full years paying tax on a salary over ~$2,600, and for “freelancers” like myself that means over $3,000 minimum, but the higher the better. There are plenty of documents to get from Thailand and your home country. It takes at least one year for approval after application and if successful you’d pay around $6,500 to have the right to stay without having the… Read more »
All of that would put me off Thailand. My PR application for Japan was a few sheets of A4, a few weeks wait and a trip to the immigration office with $60 to collect the card. The east/west salary difference is less dramatic but salaries have been stagnant long enough here that a good remote job for a US client can put you up there in the tax brackets.
> All of that would put me off Thailand.
And I have not even mentioned the part where I’ll have to sing the national anthem, and then the royal anthem in front of 20 or so “judges”. There’s also the flower ceremony, but it’s so far away, I have not looked into it in details yet 🙂
>the part where I’ll have to sing the national anthem, and then the royal anthem in front of
>20 or so “judges”.
IMHO that stuff is part of the charm. I think the kicker is going along with all of that weirdness and then still having to jump through hoops just to keep your daily life going.
Many of the digital nomads are working illegally because so it’s so much cheaper, and the authorities don’t care that much as long as they don’t work with/for Thai companies. They just need to get out of the country for a while once the visa is over, unless they get an education visa. Of course, there’s no hope of getting permanent residency that way, and they could always decide to enforce the law more strictly.
Unfortunately I can’t adopt such a kind of schedule, as I have to clock in and out and am having core times (albeit slightly relaxed due to the special situation). Nevertheless at the moment I’m still going to office, some guys especially the French guys from accross the border and the “risk patients” are home. No clue how long I still have to go to the office. But I’m enjoying the silence and the singing birds now that the hamstering times are no more as acute as the days before. Let’s see if we can keep life going or of… Read more »
Yes clearing of toilet rolls, tin food, long life milk, asprin, paracetomal, ibuprophen and cold cures. Bleach etc as people panic buy in Greater Manchester, England, UK. Guess if toilet rolls run out, people could always use pressure washers and scouring pads. 😉
Just ask the indian next door how to do without paper 😛
Here today its gradually normalising. Just toilet paper is out except for a couple of packs of recycling quality.
Here one major problem is that the borders are shut so masses of ppl usually going to shops accross the border to save some bucks now all stay home and buy here…
Here we don’t use as much toilet paper since we pre-clean by spraying water. In most cases, we only use paper to dry. On the flip side, we use the same type of “toilet paper” as tissue while eating.
I worked at home for 6+ years with a 12 hour time difference from most of my clients. Doing the work at home isn’t so much of a problem really. The problem is it gets harder and harder to keep the home and the work bit in their respective containers especially if you have family as in their mind you being at home puts you in their “home” container.
TL;DR; I took a pay cut to work at an office again.
That’s true. And nobody wants to be the dad that tells the kids to stop pestering them because they’re working. When at home, I try my best to be fully available.
Thanks for the article. Funny picture in the background. We love king!
I had kids walking in during skype video calls where I was wearing the top half of a suit to look professional. 😉
teleworker @BKK ~ 10 years pass by 55
Thanks for sharing 🙂
You’re not that far away from YouTuber TeslaBjørn who does reviews of EVs. You should the up on gadgets for cars, lot tracking, smart chargers and stuff.