How I Quadruple my Productivity by Working at The Café
By: Joseph Mavericks
Tags: Habit Building, Productivity, Motivation, Habits, Work

We all hit walls along the path to productivity, and although it’s not easy to overcome them, we all have ways of at least trying to do so. One of my favourite ways is to hit the café.

Getting there becomes an obstacle on its own if I start thinking about the fact that I have to put on my jacket, my shoes, pack up my stuff, and ride my bike for literally 5 minutes. But one of the amazing things with creative work is that the more you output, the easier it gets.

You can start completely uninspired, with no idea where you’re going. If you convince yourself to start working for 5 minutes, you could be on a 3-hour productivity rush before you even realize it. This is why I still put my jacket and my shoes on, pack up my stuff, and ride my bike for 5 minutes. Because I know it will get easier.

The order

The order is really important. I consider it a very small investment in myself. Whatever I order, be it a coffee, a cookie, or both, I have now spent money to be here, to get to work. I have to get a return, even on this tiny little investment.

A habit is a redundant set of automatic and unconscious thoughts, behaviours, and emotions, acquired through repetition. When you’ve done something so many times that your body knows how to do it better than your mind, you’ve successfully created a habit.

I like to think that I have gotten to this point with my coffeeshop routine. Once I have made the order, my brain (and body) switches to work mode.

I don’t consider this coffee (or cookie) a reward, because I haven’t started working yet. The coffee is the cue that will initiate the work habit loop. The reward is the output I will have at the end of my session.

josephmavericks.com (coffee icon by joe pictos from the Noun Project)

If you’re interested in learning more about the habit loop, I recommend Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit.

The place

The café I go to is usually not crowded, therefore pretty quiet. The music is ok, the atmosphere is chill, and the chairs are somewhat comfy.

The environment is important when working. The occasional environment switch is just as much. The reason I go to a café is because sometimes, I just can’t get to work at home.

I walk around the house

I’m distracted by everything

I go have a bite in the kitchen

I watch useless videos

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling in a starfish position

An environmental switch is one the best ways for me to change that. So I get out, and once I’m at the café, I know I’m here to work.

The work

I follow a very strict set of rules to make sure I maximise my return on the investment I made in myself.

I do not allow myself any distraction whatsoever

When I work at home, I might a have break, go for a walk, eat a snack, get distracted by a notification. Not at the coffeeshop.

I barely ever use and/or need the wifi network there. I write.

I disable notifications on my laptop (“do not disturb mode” on Mac)

I don’t bring my phone with me unless I need it, which is almost never

I don’t have breaks, because I’m sitting in a café. I can’t really go for a walk.

Disable notifications on Mac

Nicolas Cole didn’t have an internet connection at his place from the ages of 22 to 26. Why? Because he was working on his book, and he didn’t wan’t any sort of distraction to get in the way of his goal: finishing his book. By being so strict with himself, he drastically increased his productivity and his commitment to his target.

I work in 1 or 2-hour sessions

Because I force myself to not get distracted and I made a tiny financial investment in myself, I usually stay at the coffee shop for a while. I can catch up on a whole day made of constant interruptions and occasional procrastination in one coffeeshop session. I sometimes stay for more than 2 hours, and I’m always surprised by the amount of stuff I get done.

Regardless of my motivation and my creative output, I don’t allow myself to leave before an hour has passed. I always end up getting to work and staying longer.

I follow an agenda

The first thing I do when I sit down at my table and pull out my laptop is this: I open up Textedit, and I write all the things I intend on doing during my work session. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s little, and I don’t always get to the end of it. But what gets done is done for good, and I don’t need to think about it anymore. It doesn’t matter if I’m over ambitious. Ambition drive results.

Again, I do not allow myself to get off track. If I’m getting stuck on a task, I pick another one from my list. But I don’t think of something else I could do if it’s not on the list.

The reward

My greatest reward is the work I get done over my session. It makes me really happy, it pushes me to keep going forward with my project. It also makes me confident that it’s all worth it. If I’m on a roll and I feel like working even more, I might re-order something, usually a coffee.

In conclusion, here are the steps of the Café Action Plan I use to overcome a wall on my productivity path: