Why You Should Work from a Coffee Shop, Even When You Have an Office
It sounds counter-intuitive, but working at a bustling coffee shop can be less distracting than working in a quiet office. The change in environment also stimulates creativity, and chance encounters spark new ideas and connections.
In the following article from FastCompany, Family Records founder Wesley Verhoeve writes about his experience working from a coffee shop while being between offices, why he continues to keep a coffee shop day every month, and tips for making the most out of the experience.
While team Family Records was in between offices in early 2012, we had 6 weeks to bridge until our new space was ready. During that time we were fortunate enough to be taken in as guests by awesomecompanies for stretches of time, and for the remainder we took over corners of coffee shops all over Brooklyn and Manhattan. The experience of working out of coffee shops was so positive that even after we moved into our new home, I made sure to get in a few “coffee shop days” each month. For carpal tunnel related reasons alone, I would not recommend working out of coffee shops every day, but here are some reasons why it might be great to try it for one or two days every month.
A change of environment stimulates creativity. Even in the most awesome of offices we can fall into a routine, and a routine is the enemy of creativity. Changing your environment, even just for a day, brings new types of input and stimulation, which in turn stimulates creativity and inspiration.
Fewer distractions. It sounds counter-intuitive, but working from a bustling coffee shop can be less distracting than working from a quiet office. Being surrounded by awesome team- and officemates means being interrupted for water cooler chats and work questions. Being interrupted kills productivity. The coffee shop environment combines the benefit of anonymity with the dull buzz of exciting activity. Unlike working at home, with the ever-present black hole of solitude and procrastination, a coffee shop provides the opportunity of human interaction, on your terms.
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[…] and tweets about self-care among academic and clinicians more and more these days. Whether it’s setting aside a day to work in a coffee shop each month, even when you have a real office, in an effort to break up the pattern and inspire creativity, to […]