How working from Starbucks made me productive
Published: 2021-09-27 11:54:59

The past year and a half have been quite hard for a lot of people. Covid has affected our lives in so many ways that each person has their own individual story and struggles.

My personal struggle was (and still is!) that it's quite hard to work from home for me. My home's just not set up for me being able to work. So for the longest of times, I waited to get both of my vaccine doses, so that I'd be able to roam out into the real world again from this virtual world I've been part of.

In my quest to explore the outside world again, I somehow one day, made my way into a Starbucks. That's when I thought, hey, why not let's try and Work from Starbucks. They provide good (decent to good really!) internet connection and the food, although a bit expensive, is really great! So that's when I started coming to Starbucks for work. Here's how my experience went.

The first day, I thought this is not possible at all, as I faced major internet issues on connecting to the internet. I went through a series of troubleshooting, from clearing my DNS cache to changing my DNS server connection and updating my network drivers. After struggling for half a day honestly, I was able to set everything up to work. So day 1 was not really productive.

I started getting productive from day 2 onwards. That's when I realized that working from Starbucks has quite a few awesome things going for it. For one, you see other people working with you. That's definitely a positive change from working alone which gets quite lonely. Then there's also that much more of human interaction which also definitely helps in being more happy when returning to work from breaks. The change in food is also a welcome, if you're bored from eating whatever it is you get at home.

The people serving at Starbucks are really friendly. They are quite ready to help you with anything that you might need which is possible for them. For example, one day, I wanted to write down some stuff to get a better understanding of what I was working on and they helped me with a pen and tissues (very movieish :P). Also, if you stay long enough, you might even be asked to taste any sort of new cakes or coffee that they are or will be offering. 

There are some cons too, one of them is that there's a lot more people around you talking and making noise. This is like a double edged sword for me. I'd invested in a pair of noise cancelling headphones, which help me filter out any noise in and around me. Also, as its people who I do not know (unlike home!) it's really easy for me not to care about what they might be talking about. At home, sometimes, some of the conversations are important and one gets distracted when working at a particular piece of work and your family is discussing something important which could affect the entire family. Although, the extra noise is definitely a con and it's hard to attend meetings. The noise cancelling headphones cancel the noise for me, but the person who I'm talking to hears it all! That's why I work from home during the days when I have more meetings.

All in all Starbucks has been a great experience for me and I'm definitely enjoying it. If you have any experience working from Starbucks or any other place then do let me know in the comments below!