by Lesley Voss
When do you feel happy at work?
Salary, a healthy environment, and awesome coworkers – they all matter and influence your motivation. But what about your work effectiveness? Do you feel happier at work when you stay productive and complete all tasks fast, big, and in a novel way?
Productivity boost is not that easy to maintain. I bet you know that feeling after lunch when you are ready to do everything, except work. Tasks are waiting, but what you can do is sit and stare at that blinking text cursor in the hope it will disappear. It frustrates, right? It makes you sad as you want to succeed at work, be happy, and stay motivated there.
Solution?
Take your laptop and go to a coffee shop, as it’s proven to increase your creativity and productivity! How? Keep on reading to find it out.
It Stimulates Creativity
Even when working in the best-of-the-best offices, we fall into a routine from time to time, which is the worst enemy of creativity. Coffee shops allow you to change the environment, bring new stimulation, and encourage inspiration. It’s all about a happy medium of ambient noise an average coffee shop has, which is 70 decibels: it influences productivity most, while 50 decibels are too quiet and 85 decibels – too loud for a happy work.
Also, changing an office for a coffee shop satisfies our brain seek for novelty. When experiencing new stimuli, the human brain releases dopamine, we know as a hormone of happiness. Tied to motivation, it inspires to work better in seeking for reward. In coffee shops, those new stimuli are a fresh environment, new sounds, creative people working around, and lower distractions than you have in the office.
All of this makes the brain look for new pathways and create new mechanisms to complete tasks. Why do you think so many creatives, including J.K. Rowling, wrote their masterpieces in coffee shops?
It’s Less Distracting
Let’s face it:
Happiness at work has nothing to do with constant interruptions for both work and chat questions. When in office, your colleagues may bother you unintentionally, which kills productivity. And don’t tell me about your super skills in multitasking: first, it has zero chemistry with happiness at work; and second, it doesn’t play into the hands of your productivity. Multitasking is a myth itself, by the way.
Just for the record, do you know that you lose about 25 minutes every time you switch between tasks? Once interrupted, you lose focus on work, and your brain needs a half hour to concentrate on it again. As a result, you fail some tasks, miss deadlines, plagiarize ideas or writings from others to compensate for your weaknesses, and eventually go stressed.
That’s why coffee shops may be less distracting than your quiet office. Here you get an opportunity to interact on your terms. Also, a buzz of exciting activity around stimulates to work better: it’s the audience effect saying that having an audience improves our performance. When you see motivated people working around, you start competing with them (subconsciously, to be sure) and become more productive.
It Helps to Set Intentions
You have the only goal when going to a coffee shop, haven’t you? You want to get a lot of work done! As well as new physical surrounding influences creativity and productivity, this set intention influences your motivation to work. The sense of purpose you have when entering a coffee shop inspires to complete more tasks and cross them out of your to-do list.
Long story short, a sole concise intention makes a difference.
Another point to the good of coffee shops is networking. You watch people working there, connect with them, get different perspectives on your work and projects, listen to new ideas that may inspire you and provide with solutions… Business meetings in coffee shops have advantages, too: the atmosphere of such locations is promotive of conversation, so it’s a great chance to get maximum out of this environment.
Long Story Short…
Despite all benefits of coffee shops for your productivity, don’t hurry up to leave a job and go to the first available cafe in search of motivation and creative ideas. A coffee shop itself won’t make you happy at work. You need to know how to work from there:
- Choose a cafe that meets your needs. It should encourage you to work better; it should be comfortable and workers-friendly. Try different ones to find yours, and make sure to choose several ones to avoid the work routine mentioned at the beginning of the article.
- No need to spend all working days in coffee shops. It stands to reason that far from every office will allow employees to work like that; a few “coffee shop days” each month would be enough to feel the positive changes in motivation and productivity.
- To get the most out of coffee shops environment, set a definite intention before going there and remember the etiquette. Buy something, keep quiet, and share a table with others. Sounds obvious, but don’t forget to clean up after yourself, as well.
It’s your turn now.
The colleagues to whom I asked this question noticed a better focus, inspiration, and desire to complete more tasks for less time. Do you work in coffee shops? Does working from coffee shops influence your motivation and productivity?
Photo: Pexels
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Thanks for pointing out why working at a coffee shop or cafe helps make you more productive. I think that working at a cafe can be a good thing because you can also have coffee and other food there if you start feeling your momentum die down and you need to take a break. I also think that it’s good because you can meet new people at a cafe while working too.
I’ve worked at coffee shops for years. It really is a great place for creative work, although some are better than others. If the first one doesn’t work, try another.