Coffee Shops and the Like

Hello,

I am sitting here at a coffee shop. I find myself at coffee shops a lot lately. There is something about being in a public place that forces me to be more productive than if I am by myself. My neck hurts from an uncomfortable chair, there is grunge music blasting in the background, yet this space has a certain holiness I cannot quite describe. It is set apart from the other spaces I occupy. Maybe it is the fact that I consistently rotate through coffee shops, so I am never fully comfortable. This slight on-edge feeling keeps me from patterns of procrastination that have developed in other settings. Maybe it is that I never see people I know, so I am able to be truly alone despite the bustle around me. It might even be the caffeine I am pumping into my body because I am, in fact, at a coffee shop. Whatever the reason, I get some of my best work done cramped at a small table, with a sore bum and a small headache. 

The lesson I have learned from this is that I don’t have to wait for the perfect time/space/comfort in order to be productive. I will use the excuse that I am not quite comfortable enough. That I don’t have enough time to do anything really productive. That I’ll just get interrupted if I try to work. Yet, I have found that sometimes the little 15 minutes I sit down in the middle of a crazy day is more effective than a 4 hour space of time I have carved out of my day to be in the perfect environment with no other responsibilities to distract me. Maybe I am the only person who experiences this, but I would venture a guess that I am not. So maybe you, like me, shouldn’t wait for that ever elusive perfect situation to be productive. Maybe we can instead seize those little moments of inspiration amidst an otherwise packed day. And just maybe we will find those to be some of the most effective moments of our lives.

-NR