This experience dates from February 2023.  I renewed my Mexico Temporary Residency for 3 more years.

(Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.  Immigration requirements can change over time.)

Start the process at the Immigration Trámites site.  For temporary residency you want “Expedición de document migratorio por renovación” (renewal) or “por canje” (new).  This will start a process that will also provide you with a concise list of requirements.  This is a nice addition since 2022.

From what I've read, the maximum initial Temporary Residency is for 1 year, then after a year you can extend 1-3 more years at once (3 years is by far the most efficient if you might use them, both from a money and time standpoint).  When I got the initial residency I had to start the process outside of Mexico

Photos: as you should see on the website requirements list, bringing small portrait photos with you for Renewal or New visas is no longer required.  The

Payment: Immigration now accepts payment by card during the visit.  This is advertised heavily within the building.  I would strongly recommend this option since both years they found some missing detail with my bank payment that meant I had to double-pay and come back on a different day if I wanted a refund.  Just bring a credit/debit card.

The appointment

You’re going to have to make two visits, one to get an appointment and then the next visit on the day of your appointment.  The address for the visit is: Av. Ejército Nacional Mexicano 862, Polanco, Ciudad de México.

What to bring (first visit - getting an appointment)

-       Sun protection – you may be standing outside quite a while with no shade

-       Your trámite paper – they will mark your appointment date on this

-       They didn’t ask to see any other papers but I personally would bring the full set of documents from the list below just in case.

What to bring (second visit - day of appointment)

-       A pen (they say to bring a blue one, although black pen worked fine.  They have pens but for hygiene reasons you probably want your own)

-       A kindle or book.  There will be hours of waiting time and you can’t use a cell phone or headphones (a new requirement this time).  At least 6 staff told me I needed to put my Kindle away but I just said “es un libro” and showed them, and they were all fine with it.

-       Water bottle

-       Sun protection may still be a good idea, the place people are waiting outside is not all shaded

-       Cubrebocas (facemask) is still required

-       All the documents listed on your trámite website

The visit (getting an appointment)

-       I would recommend arriving not later than 9am.  I got there at 8am, was admitted to the courtyard 8:20, and waited in line till 9:45 or so, when I got my appointment time (for 2 business days later).  There was still a line of at least ~50 ppl behind me who had been admitted to the courtyard too, so I’m certain they got appointment times.  People who arrived after 9am got admitted too but I don’t know when they shut down the appointment tent in the courtyard for the day so I wouldn’t try to shave it too close by coming much later.

-       Simple visa renewal was on in the line outside the West side of the courtyard, as are most processes apparently.  If you have something else I would just ask a staff member because hey said there was another line outside the East side of the courtyard.  There’s no signage indicating what the lines are for.

-       I visited Thursday, my visa card expired Friday, and they gave me an appointment for Monday meaning my visa card would spend a few days expired.  They said that was no problem since I already had the appointment.

-       I don’t know if it’s possible to get a same-day appointment no matter how early you arrive, considering when I got my appt they were already backed up 3 days.

The visit (day of appointment)

-       My appointment was at 12:30pm.  They let us enter at 1pm.  I’d recommend being on times because they let people in in one big group for the appointment time.  I was just waiting in lines until 2:45pm when I started the process at the window.  At 3:15pm I was in the photo-taking area and finished the process with my new card in hand around 4pm.

-       For reference, they let in about 30 people for the 12:30 time so they may be running around 300 people per day (unverified napkin math)

Good luck!

I've gotten some questions about how I start my work day, so here are current details.  This is always a work in progress - I frequently experiment with new checklist points.  I'm just including the ones that have endured long-term here.

If you want the list without background, feel free to skip down to the numbered, bolded points below.

Sometimes checklist points are quickly discarded, and sometimes they endure.  For them to stay, they have to be truly valuable and worth looking at every day.  If I find myself skimming over them consistently then they have to go.

There are a few major goals with this list:

Start the day off with a series of familiar, small successes.

I learned this from the excellent book, "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg.  He relays the story of how Michael Phelps starts each race day in exactly the same way - physical routine, eating, music, etc.  I start each work day in the same way which means that 20 minutes into my day, I've already experienced a number of familiar small successes.

"The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension."

- Bob Bowman

Clear my plate of anything that might be urgent or distracting, so I can focus solely on my top priority.

I want to clear out emails, ad hoc task lists, and other inputs so that there's nothing I feel I need to be looking at except what's right in front of me.

Create an ordered task list for the day

I originally learned about this from speaker Brian Tracy.  Throughout the day, I don't want to make repeated decisions about what to work on next.  Those decisions would drain energy and introduce opportunities for procrastination or mental drift.  So, once I'm done with the first item on my list, I just want to grab the second item and go - no need to think about it or look at anything else further down my list (which would also distract from the present task).

---

With those goals in mind, here's my current list, with a few notes.

(2) Straight back, shoulders back, breathe deeply

If it's an option, I want to get ~15 min of direct sunlight per day, preferably early.  This kick-starts my circadian rhythm and helps with being appropriately tired at bedtime.

(7) Set up workspace

I work remotely from many locations around the world, so this is setting up my portable monitor and headphones.

• Calendar
• Task manager (Asana)
• Email accounts (I have 3 for my two companies and personal - left open for compose and search, not checking.  See brief email guidelines below.)

Right now I just have one of these:

What's awesome right now?

I date and fill that in for each day.  It's really good perspective.  Others prefer a question like "What am I thankful for?"  If I'm really struggling with "awesome" which does happen on occasion, then I answer "What can I be content about right now?"

(10) Clear inboxes

• Business email for both companies
• Task management urgent items (anything assigned to me by company staff and needing ASAP attention)
  

In OneNote I keep a list of items that I want to clear out start of next business day.  I just skim these and drop the into my Current folder in OneNote (that I work out of all day, and where I arrange my tasks for the day).

"Weekday Urgent" gives me a place to drop things I want to ensure I follow up on quickly but don't want to get sidetracked on immediately.

--- [End of Daily Urgent]

Once I get here I've looked at anything that could possibly be urgent.  If there's nothing that requires immediate attention, I may go ahead and change location, e.g. move from home to office, or do my 2MR workout if I haven't yet.

(14) Clear Business Anki

I use spaced repetition daily for both business and non-business memory - language learning, anatomy, quotes to review from time to time, important lessons, technical knowledge.  This takes about 1-2 minutes for business usually, but that small amount of time allows me to remember many thousands of concepts long-term.  The Anki app is excellent and syncs between computer and phone.

(15) Clear all daily notes:

  (a) From Kindle books

I wrote a program to scrape my Kindle notes from the previous day.  I use these because I don't ever want my phone near my bed, but I always have my Kindle Paperwhite there - if I think of something for the next day when drifting off to sleep, I make a note in any Kindle book with my own notation (".n.") which indicates I want to think about it "now," i.e. beginning of next day.

(16) Add Asana clear to task list

Occasionally I need to have a "catch-up day" where I clear out accumulating tasks but on most days I set a goal, and most of those I'm able to hit.  I adjust it to the time I have - can be several hours or as little as half an hour to complete.

(18) Update Daily Goal journal