Are there times when you feel “stuck”? Your head is swirling with the same ideas, the same questions, and you can’t seem to get out of your own head? I certainly have!

I’ve often found that in such cases, being able to change the location of where I’m working, can have a huge impact on “shaking things up” as they say 🙂 Just being in a different location disrupts the typical patterns that your brain is used to, and opens up your mind a little bit.

Now, when doing this, you can of course go sit in a different room in your house (if you’re working remotely), or sit in a different place in your office. But I’ve found that a great place to work if you can, is your regular old coffee shop 🙂

There’s something about working in a coffee shop that I find highly energizing. There’s enough of a buzz in the air that I personally find very helpful in giving me a boost, especially on those days when I need a boost. It’s helpful to find a coffee shop that’s good for working – ie, it has good wifi, has enough places to sit and work on a laptop, has places to plug in your laptop if needed. And of course, let’s not forget, there’s the caffeine 😀

The noise level in a good coffee shop is typically just right for getting work done – it’s not too quiet that you feel isolated. And it’s not too loud that it gets distracting. It’s just the right amount to get you going. If there are other people in the coffee shop, it can also act as a great way to surround yourself with other people thriving in that atmosphere, as well as potentially connect with them. In the book “Where Good Ideas Come from“, author Steven Johnson talks about the impact that “Coffeehouse Culture” had on the Age of Enlightenment. Quoting from this NPR article on the book:

“Johnson also suggests that good ideas don’t come from a lone genius working in a lab as often as they come from interactions between geniuses.  Just think of what the coffeehouse did for the Age of Enlightenment. People would hang out in this intellectual hub and have these free-floating conversations about all these different interests and passions. There should be a plaque to commemorate [that coffeehouse],” Johnson says. “It was really a tremendously generative space. In the book I describe these as ‘liquid networks,’ where there is … fluidity in the conversation, but it is also a network of different people with different perspectives coming together.”

NPR

Once the pandemic hit, I really missed being able to work in coffee shops. But now that things are opening up again, I’m back to finding time to take advantage of all the amazing cafes in my city. The next time you feel that you’re in a funk, I encourage you to hit a cafe near you. You will feel lethargic when you’re at home. But you won’t regret leaving once you get there 🙂