Getting Things Done October 29, 2007
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , trackbackThe past 7 days have perhaps been the most productive I've experienced in Thailand.
I've always claimed that it is impossible to do more than two things in one day over here. Any task seems to take half a day of ones time or half a day of ones energy but, despite spending our evenings exhausted, Tik and I are delighted that we've worked productively through our to-do lists.
It's been 5 months since Tik and I decided to purchase our own apartment. We've had frustrations and delays with every bank we approached but we were determined to have moved in before November 1st.
Last Monday we at last got something in writing from the bank and now wer've cleared out bottleneck we've really gained some momentum. Here's how our last week panned out …
Monday:
- Collected Barry from the airport at 7am and brought him home to his place.
- Met with Bangkok Bank at their head office to complete the paperwork for our mortgage
- Drove to Rockworth in Ekkamai to make payment for my office desk and chairs
- Drove to Index in Bang Na to pay for cupboards and our breakfast bar
- Drove to TOT Chit-Lom to order telephone and internet service
Tuesday:
- Went to bank to withdraw cashiers check
- Tik and I stayed up late to clear our backlog of work.
Wednesday:
- Arrived at 12:00 at a government registrars building to met with representatives from Bangkok Bank, Belle Park and their lawyer friends. This was when we transferred the condominium to our name.
- Tik then flew to Singapore
Thursday:
- A relatively relaxed day for me, just trying to get on top of my work and organizing through books, DVD's and clothes.
- Met a friend for lunch and bought myself a "Teach Yourself HTML' book
Friday:
- Full day (6am - 7pm) in Cambodia to do a visa run. I was working late Thursday and did not go to bed that night on the premise that I'd be able to sleep on the bus. My bus was overbooked though, and despite making a reservation was made to wait 90 minutes in Tesco Car park until a friend of the travel agent came to pick up up in his car. I didn't get a chance to sleep that day so came home exhausted.
- Tik returned from Singapore about 9pm
Saturday:
- Wake up about 6am and go out for breakfast.
- Home-moving company arrived 7:30 am. They sent 6 people to help us which was an unexpected bonus. Everything got boxed, packed and moved to our new place within about 3 hours. ONly one casualty was a glass water-jug which we'd planned to replace anyway.
- Rockworth arrive to install my office table
- Shout a lot at TOT because internet is not working
- We have a LOT of unpacking and tidying to do
- Visit Powerbuy you inspect washing machines
Sunday:
- Drive to Barry's to deliver our TV set and DVD player to him
- Meet friend for lunch, collect his washing machine
- Visit to Index to order bedroom cupboards & purchase 2 stools
- Return home to organize office
Monday:
- Rise early to begin sorting daily emails
- Index arrive to install cupboards and breakfast bar
- Rearrange office & kitchen
Still to go …
- The fridge will arrive tomorrow (hopefully)
- Next Monday our bedroom cupboards arrive
- We could do with selling / donating some furniture that we don't want.
- The office, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom needs some rewiring and general handyman work
- Tik and I are really looking forward to going to JJ market to get some nice paintings. We'll do that next weekend.
We're now at the stage where we can see nearly all the floor as we've moved all our rubbish into the large spare bedroom. My office is working perfectly although I've got large clumps of wires which will be tidied once we get some more power sockets installed.
I think our honeymoon period will last some time. Tonight we are Mexican food on our balcony. We are on the 16th floor overlooking a HUGE swimming pool and the weather here is very comfortable in the evenings. Our lounge area is very comfortable and I enjoyed sitting with my books before. The pool always has a few people in but it's far too big to get busy.
We're still finding our feet this week but in a fe days 'll write down a comparison of Bangkok Gardens with where we are now. In short though, despite losing the 'gardens' of our previous home, we are going to have a much better life here.
Tik's got a very busy week in the office and I'm overwhelmed with my new PlugandSave site which launched 2 weeks ago, I begin a 1-month internet marketing course tomorrow, am teaching myself HTML programming and need to teach myself accounting before December 1st.
At least now though we've gotten most of the hard work over with, we enjoy rearranging the place and despite the hard work we've put in, we're going to be very happy here.
[tags] belle park, bangkok garden, home moving, condominium, naratiwat, bangkok bank, siam movers [/tags]
Comments»
Bravo. Congratulations on the new home - I hope I will get to see it some time soon.
Mike x