Skip to content
memoDwarves Foundation

Handbook

Where we work: the Saigon office, home, cafés and coworking spaces

Where Dwarves works from, with the Saigon office, home setup tips, the coworking stipend, noise and color research, and a list of cafés to work from.

By duynglam21 Feb 20193 min read

Snapshot from 2019. Some tools and numbers have changed.

The Dwarves HQ is in Saigon, Vietnam. Fifty-ish people and two cats have desk space in the Saigon office, but those people also work from home regularly. We expand the office space when the old one is full and people want the new office. Anyone is welcome to visit Saigon and work from the office at any time.

This page covers the other places people work from, home, cafés and coworking spaces, and how to pick one. For how remote and office time balance, see Hybrid working.

From home

A few people at Dwarves are based in other countries and work from home most of the time. Getting the basics right makes a big difference: a good chair and a good desk.

Seven habits help when home is your office:

  • Dedicated workspace. Separate your workspace from your living space.
  • Put some clothes on.
  • Fake a commute.
  • Set your hours.
  • Take a lunch break.
  • Take your days off seriously.
  • Drink up.

From coffee shops

Working from home all the time is not for everyone, so many of us work from coffee shops or other third spaces, some of the time or a lot of the time. They bring a buzz of other people and much-needed caffeine. Mind our basic security rules and procedures so that nothing leaks onto the café wifi.

Working Cafe lists more spots.

Saigon cafés

  • Camellia Tea & Coffee
  • The Vintage Emporium
  • Loft
  • ID Cafe
  • Kamakura
  • C.On Cafe
  • The Workshop
  • The Morning Cafe
  • Oromia Coffee
  • L'Usine Le Loi

From a coworking space

If home or a coffee shop does not suit you, try a coworking space. We support a $50/month stipend toward a desk in such a place. These sites help you find one:

Match the place to the task

Noise levels

If you do creative work, research suggests you want ambient noise. A café or coworking space is the right choice. If you need to focus on one specific task, you want silence, because quiet spaces help us focus on straightforward tasks.

You can bring a café with you:

Color and space

Other studies found that color plays a role as well. Switching your computer's background to blue enhances performance on creative tasks, and switching it to red helps with detail-oriented tasks. Large, open rooms with high ceilings may also promote creative thinking.