this advice changed how i structure my life

hey friends,

i started this new thing where i spend 2 weeks in bangkok, 2 weeks in chiang mai. back and forth.

sounds random but hear me out.

i've been in chiang mai for months building cyndra. love it here. quiet, cheap, i can lock in for 8 hours straight without anyone bothering me.

but when i need to meet people, close deals, get around other founders who are actually building? cnx is dead.

bangkok is the opposite. every time i go i leave with new connections and new deals on the table. but i get zero deep work done. too much going on.

so i just stopped trying to make one city do everything.

was talking to sam marks a few weeks ago at his mastermind in bangkok. this guy sold 3 companies for over $100M before turning 30.

he said something that stuck with me.

"your environment is your strategy."

most founders pick one city and try to force it all to work. networking, building, sales, deep work, all from the same apartment. same routine. same desk.

that's not a strategy. that's just hoping your willpower holds up.

so here's what i'm doing.

energy weeks (bangkok)

meetings, calls, networking, recording content, coworking. high energy, lots of people.

focus weeks (chiang mai)

building, writing, systems, deep work. headphones on, phone off, no social obligations.

the rotation is key. you never burn out because you switch modes before you hit a wall. and you batch your work by environment instead of trying to "balance" everything every single day.

how to try this yourself (even without two cities)

1. list your work into two buckets: energy work (calls, meetings, networking) and focus work (building, writing, deep thinking)

2. pick two environments that match. could be coworking vs home office, a cafe vs your desk, mornings vs afternoons

3. block your calendar in chunks. don't mix both in the same day. energy days and focus days, not both crammed into every day

4. try it for 2 weeks and see what changes. i promise you'll feel the difference by day 3

you don't need two cities. you just need two modes. and the discipline to not blur them together.

trying this for 3 months. will report back on what works and what breaks.

thank you for reading :)

forward this to someone who's been at the same desk for too long. they probably need it.

— johann