I need an office

I had a pretty honest conversation with my girlfriend last night. We agreed that we both needed our own workspace.

It's true because she's the type of person who values deep work, and like me, she likes to talk to herself when she's working. This has been incredibly difficult for us to do on a daily basis since we decided to live under the same roof.

I know we'll adjust, but I wanted to come back to all of the reasons why I think you should definitely have your own office—or at least a place where you enjoy putting in the work—especially if you're bootstrapping solo abroad.

Working from cafes is terrible

I know the idea sounds great and it works for a lot of people.

@patwalls is one famous case of a solopreneur who bootstrapped his business to one million dollars from a Starbucks:

If you're lucky enough to live in a place where people place a premium value on coming to a cafe to do deep work, then that's fine. I think that's the case in big cities like New York, Seoul, Paris, Singapore, etc.—where those places are easy to find and where you've got great coworking spaces as well.

But it's not the case here in Southeast Asia yet. So far in Vietnam, I've had little luck finding those places where I could consistently go back and get work done.

Cafes are distracting and coworking places too (too far, too noisy).

There's this one cafe near my place which is actually pretty nice, but it's on the second floor, it only opens at 10am, and sometimes it's overrun by Korean ajummas who like to come and gossip out loud.

So in the end you think you'll get work done from cafes, but in reality they end up sucking out all of your attention:

• You'll likely fidget a lot as your seat probably won't feel comfortable
• You'll likely be hunched over your laptop
• If it's a terrace, you'll feel hot ASAP
• There's loud music

In addition:

• The road to get there is usually loud
• The road to come back is loud too
• If you're walking, you'll likely get honked at
• You've got to order
• You've got to find that special seat with a plug nearby

In the end, you've got to make a lot of micro-decisions, and that sheds away a lot of your attention before you even open your laptop. Ultimately, this impacts your willpower and motivation to get things done.

I utterly hate it.

I need to feel safe and comfortable if I want to work in a flow state and do my best work. Flow state is where I'm the most creative (and also where work feels the most enjoyable).

I've never had any luck working from cafes in Southeast Asia—maybe 1/10 times. So I gave up working from there.

A place for work (I currently don't have it)

It's far better to own your own infrastructure where you can reduce distractions around you.

For me, that place is home.

Maybe you COULD work from your hotel and do like this guy:

But honestly, it's going to be terrible for your mental health and overall well-being.

There's no better feeling than knowing you can consistently go to a place every morning to get work done. There's no better feeling than knowing you can spend three to four hours on a specific problem that you want to solve that day.

(Okay, I said "you" but at least for me :)

There was this time when I was doing an internship at a big German automotive group while still at uni. The office was very far out in the countryside because the company needed a massive space to park thousands of their new cars. So we all had allowances for corporate housing nearby the HQ.

I would go to the office every morning around 6 or 7 and start getting work done when everything was quiet. I loved it because I could focus so well.

So I think it's very important to be able to go somewhere that lets you mentally separate so you can say "here is home" and "here is work" in your head.

Bootstrapping while living with someone (promise, it's not glamorous!)

(current situation–2 bedroom)

I've been in a stable relationship for about a year and a half now. I met my girlfriend a few months after arriving in Vietnam. I wasn't particularly seeking out a relationship at that time—it was more of a serendipitous encounter which ended up making lots of changes in my life.

Falling in love and wanting to spend time with someone that you want to see every day—and who gives you a reason to truly succeed by being financially free because you want to spend more time with her, because you want to raise your children in a carefree way and make great memories with those who matter to you before dying—that's probably the best realization I've had (and keep on having) as I'm going through this journey with her.

Our first apartment was a bit tight:

We've been stepping on each other's toes since we first moved in together. At first we shared the same 1-bedroom apartment (I'm guessing I'll write another post one day to give more context about our situation at that time). Then we moved into another 1-bedroom apartment, and finally we found a 2-bedroom apartment in the same building where we're currently at.

My girlfriend also runs her own business and just like me she's got a flexible schedule. That means she can wake up any time she wants, go to work one day, stay at home the next, and so on.

So there are pros and cons in terms of being a solo entrepreneur who's living with another entrepreneur. We are very free, but at the same time, lacking structure is a double-edged sword.

Words for the end

This is going to change by reclaiming one of our apartment units upstairs that we're currently renting out to someone (that one in the image above where you feel it's more focused).

We'll do this at the end of December and until then we'll be off in the countryside where we've got more space.