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I've been living in Thailand while I work on a startup, and the rest of my team lives in the US. I've been trying to maintain some overlap with US timezones, wh
by nathan_f77 11y ago
I've been living in Thailand while I work on a startup, and the rest of my team lives in the US. I've been trying to maintain some overlap with US timezones, which means regularly staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning. I try to get at least 8 hours of sleep and don't set an alarm, but now this article has got me worried about the long term effects.
It's often difficult to stick to my schedule. Sometimes I can get very focussed on my work, and I look out the window to see that the sun has already come up. It only takes one mistake like this to throw out my schedule for the whole week, and I have insomnia if I try to fall asleep at the usual time. Often the only way to fix it is by forcing myself to wake up very early, so that I'm tired enough to fall asleep the next night.
So this article has been pretty eye-opening for me, and I'll be monitoring my routine more closely now.
- peteretep 11y agoWhat's the point of living in Thailand if you're working during key socialization periods?
- krstck 11y agoCost of living.
- ptaipale 11y agoI expect there are other reasons as well? From a pure cost of living point of view, e.g. Ecuador would not be very different from Thailand, and you wouldn't worry about time difference to U.S. Though I must say that for instance Costa Rica sounds a lot better for living, even if it is 30 % higher cost.
- peteretep 11y agoWell quite. There are many good reasons to live in Thailand - I've been there maybe 10 out of the last 30 years - but I think you'd skip most of them if you were working from 6pm to 4am frequently; and you'd quickly end up in a situation where somewhere in Central or South America would give you normal working hours + many of the benefits of Thailand.
- nathan_f77 11y agoCentral or South America would be great. The main reason we're in Thailand is because my wife found a job teaching English. The money isn't that great, but she enjoys the job and it's nice to be here on longer term visas. I'm not sure if there are any English teaching jobs in South America, but the timezone would be nice.
- nathan_f77 11y agoI usually work during the afternoon, then have a long break in the evening when my wife comes home from her English teaching job. We have dinner, hang out with friends, then I continue working later on at night. We also live in a really small town in the middle of nowhere. We have a couple of nice restaurants, but the nearest city with a mall is 1.5 hours away by bus. It's very peaceful, though. The cost of living is also extremely low, to the point where 2 or 3 weeks of consulting work would cover a year of rent and food. So it's the perfect way to bootstrap a startup, I think.
- peteretep 11y agoMakes sense. Hit me up if you come down to Bangkok - my wife is a teacher also.