Friday Notes #62 — Back at the Coffee Shop
Heading back to the coffee shop. Is this a sign of the return of a normal life?
Sanitary rules are becoming a thing of the past, yet again, and coffee shops are now reopening. At long last. I love going to the coffee shops, but it’s not for what you might think. It’s not really about having a great latte or cappuccino. It’s the combination of drinking a great coffee, feeling the crowd and the atmosphere AND doing creative work. It’s a perfect combination for a great coffee shop session. But why is that?
According to this Wikipedia article on the “Coffeehouse effect”:
“…it has been proven that when exposed to new stimuli, possibly including the sounds and scents in cafes,[3] the brain tends to create new mechanisms to accomplish tasks.”
Coffee shops offer an ambience quite different from home. People coming in or leaving the place, students working with their friends and their laptops with their AirPods, the music playing, the noise from the kitchen are all sorts of stimuli adding up to the caffeine. It’s a stimulating combination that makes working easier, even though it is constantly interrupted with each coffee sip.
Over the years, the reasons for spending hours in a coffee shop evolved, but it has always been for doing some form of creative work.
Tomorrow, I’ll be going back to my local coffee shop, ordering a cappuccino and maybe something to eat, looking around for the best sitting place, and getting ready to work and be creative. Of all the things I publish on my websites, many of them were created at the coffee shop.
Life is made of small pleasures. ☕️😊👨🏻💻
