Why Are We More Productive At Coffee Shops?

You are craving a coffee and decided to stop by the coffee shop on the corner. And when you are inside, you saw that a bunch of people just sank into their laptops. Nope, you did not just step into the library by mistake. But coffee shops are the new libraries. And not just recently. For many years. I don’t remember how it became normalized to work in a coffee shop but for me, it was since 2016. But why though? When did we accept them as our workplaces? Our homes are perfectly comfortable and have free access to food, coffee, Wi-Fi, and water. Yes, I specifically did mention water because when you ask a barista to fill up your water bottle for the third time before the day ends, it can get quite a bit embarrassing.

Have you ever wondered why we are more productive at coffee shops? Or let me ask this again. Are we really productive at coffee shops or are we just pretending because we just love the atmosphere? It cannot be denied that there is a romantic aspect to working in a coffee shop. When you are sitting in a cute little coffee shop, taking a sip from your well-prepared latte and typing on your laptop, it seems like from a movie scene. Not always maybe, but most of the time it does.

I might be a queen of working in coffee shops for the last few years. I have written most of my assignments for my first master's in Caribou Coffee, to be more specific, the one on Karanfil Street in Ankara. In my second master's, I wrote most of my thesis at Costa on Sketty Road in Swansea. For the first and second years of my Ph.D., I was the most regular customer of Pret in the West Quay in Southampton. I can’t even begin to tell you how much work I have done in there. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Now I’m in between places. But the one thing that did not change is that I love working in coffee shops. Even though I have a perfectly fine room at home and an office at university, somehow, I find coffee shops more comfortable to work in.

 But there should be some sort of logic behind this. And I don’t buy stuff like ‘but I have a bed in my room that makes me sleepy while working’. Yes, that is true, and I used it too in the past but if you really think about it, our bed and other things that make us too comfortable to work were with us for our whole life. How did we suddenly become the creatures who can't work at home and need a coffee shop?

Coffee shops are loud places with people’s chit-chat, coffee grinding and milk foaming noise, and music in the background. And it is not always easy to get in the mood and focus on the work when there is literally a million factor that makes it difficult. Sometimes all the plugs are full when your laptop is about to die. Sometimes Wi-Fi signal is weak because there are lots of people trying to connect. Sometimes you have a family with kids who are sitting next to you and you get annoyed by all the kids’ noises even though you know it is not a library. And yet it still doesn’t stop you from going to a coffee shop. Right now, I find quiet places like my office or library simply boring because it is too easy to work. I need some sort of challenge to be able to focus and get any work done. But it is not just that.

I think first of my personal motivations is, apart from getting a delicious coffee, when I go to a coffee shop, I tell my brain, ‘Right, so we came here and ordered an overpriced latte and sat on an uncomfortable chair just so you could get some work done.’ Knowing that I'll only be there for a few hours forces me to be productive. And secondly, I think all the distractions like café noises and the other chit chat became inaudible for me now. It wasn’t like this before. I remember while I was doing my masters and trying to work on my thesis in Costa, there were days when I tried so hard to just focus on what I read and ended up accomplishing nothing. And headphones do not always make it better. Sometimes it's better to just listen to what café plays randomly rather than listening to your favorite playlist much more loudly.  But now I just don’t hear the voices. It's not like I'm suddenly deaf, but they're just background noises that I don't care about anymore and, more importantly, that doesn't distract me from my work. And also when I read a little on the subject (I don’t do that normally before writing, but with this subject, I was curious about what others think) I saw that there are actually studies on how coffee shop background noise can help your productivity.

Of course, there are a few downsides to working in a coffee shop. First off, you need to buy a drink every few hours not just to avoid being the weirdo who sits for free for hours since most people don't care; but if you are like me and become extremely thirsty while working, one latte won't keep you satisfied for five hours. The second problem is the lack of proper food. It's not very realistic to work without having any food all day. But you may not always want to spend too much money or fill yourself up with a cold sandwich. Sometimes I just want to eat the food I cook and continue working. And lastly, if you’re working in a coffee shop, you’re basically sitting in a chair all day without getting able to relax or change places. Of course, you can leave your stuff at the café and go for a walk (because we all know it is perfectly safe to leave your laptop to a complete stranger in a coffee shop) but other than that it’s just you and a chair all day. But in the end, it increases my productivity so much, especially lately and I would rather spend a few bucks more and eat a lousy sandwich or simply starve than be unproductive all day.