Reynaldo had a complex presentation due in two days. It was a PowerPoint presentation along with some data research.
It was crunch time as the first draft review was due in 24 hours.
Reynaldo did what he knew best. He went to a coffee shop.
It is something I have seen so many times….need to hit a deadline, head to a coffee shop.
Sitting with a cup of coffee and pounding out a document or presentation happens thousands of times each day in this country.
Why the coffee shop? Noise, people coming and going, kids running around, loud people talking are all part of the coffee shop.
It is interesting that noise is a big problem for workers in an office (see the Harvard Study about working in cubicles)
If noise is a problem in an office, how does a coffee shop become a better place to work?
According to an article in Inc. Magazine, it turns out that it not so much the noise but who makes the noise.
In a coffee shop, we don’t know anyone else (usually) and we are left alone.
That makes it easy to focus on the work because we can ignore everyone around us.
In an open office, everyone can drop by and talk, you can hear all phone conversations, and you can eavesdrop on all conversations going on around you.
This is a shift in my thinking…I always thought that silence was critical to focus and getting work done.
However, it turns out that the type of noise becomes very important.
Even though a coffee shop can be a good place to work, home is a much superior place to get work done (I have written about this before where studies have shown an average of 37% increase in productivity).